In this pocket publication Flanders Arts Institute examines new ways of working internationally in the arts. Joris Janssens collects insights and light bulb moments from the research & development programme (Re)framing the International.
In 2018, Drugo more, an NGO from Rijeka, Croatia whose president is Davor Mišković, one of the RESHAPE advisors, organized a festival and exhibition dedicated to the topic of transnationalism – a social phenomenon which arises from the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.
The notion of transnationality/postnationality offers a tempting perspective. It inspires to change the mindset for a while; to get rid of currently dominating patterns of thinking and operating, that most often represent the dominant structure of national states. However promising it may sound, to most of art workers it would be a misleading fantasy: for the actual political map does influence our professional and private lives on the every day basis, shaping our ways of thinking and enabling or interrupting relations.
In July 2019, something snapped in the Kenyan performance artist Ogutu Muraya, who was living in Amsterdam at the time. He decided to stop applying for European visas and return to Nairobi. His decision was motivated by a desire to ‘go beyond Europe’, to free his imagination, to transcend internal limits rather than merely trying to cross physical borders. In this text, he tells us how he intends to continue his artistic practice and maintain his presence – but strictly on his own terms.
Under Power. Care. Municipalism. Creativity. Feminisation. Conviviality. Commoning. Activism. Ethics. Solidarity. Empathy. Internationalism. Citizenship. Generosity. Decolonisation. Collaboration. Storytelling. Agency. Systemic Change. Hope. Non-violence. Learning. Humour. Sociality. Invention. Listening. Diversity. Humility. Resistance. Horizontality. Poetry. Cooperation. Discovery. Artivism. Migration. Rebellion. Vulnerability. Courage. Justice. Sharing. Struggle. Civil Imagination. Lived Experience. Joy...
Listen to the radio talk about the Reshape project that was made in Barcelona during the Art and Citizenship workshop. The radio talk took place at Lleialtat Santsenca and was guided by La Fundició and Radio Cava-Ret.
Gathered around the storyboard of a comic book describing an Eastern European art worker, an uncanny, quirky cast of characters find themselves in a heated political debate. Revealing layer upon layer of unanswered questions, forgotten convictions, eternal doubts, ethical inconsistencies and abandoned dreams, Milikić depicts a world in which art workers navigate between cynicism and ideals. With strength, conviction and lots of humour, he advocates for keeping one’s course in the murky waters of compromise and concessions.
Pedro Costa is professor at the Department of Political Economy at the ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and director of DINAMIA’CET-iscte (Research Center on Socioeconomic Change and Territory). An economist with a research specialization in urban and regional planning, Costa works on areas of territorial development and cultural economics. In the context of RESHAPE, he was the facilitator of the trajectory Value of Art in the Social Fabric, where the question of how to better understand the impact, tangible and intangible, of artists and their work on the local context was raised. In this conversation, we explore some of the processes and outputs of this trajectory.
