Dispatch: In between the lessons. Staying together in uncertain times, laughing in the face of trouble, and disobeying; the future belongs to us
In her dispatch from the School of Common Knowledge curator Antonela Solenički recalls the stream of encounters, the exchanges in between lectures, the coffees and cigarette breaks in Zagreb and Ljubljana. Tired from endlessly using and misusing English, she asks ‘what words will we write the future with?’
It’s the end of May in Zagreb and the weather is tricky. I arrive fifteen minutes early at the museum; it’s the first day of ‘The School of Common Knowledge’ and there is an opening lecture. As I wait for the rest of the group to arrive I sit in the bar in front of the museum, order a coffee, and roll a cigarette. I light it and search for more information online. People start to arrive; friends, students, artists, lecturers. Hello-hello. Kiss-kiss. Don’t all the lectures usually start late? I light up another one as I talk to strangers who feel like people I already know.
Photo: Antonela Solenički
Zagreb-Kostanjevica-Ljubljana. Six days of presentations-lunches-lectures-workshops-dinners. Keywords: comradeship-resistance-post-socialism. What is to be done with those words? We have learned that we must go beyond the words for words are worlds and they shift meanings between contexts. English here is simply not enough, one can even talk with their eyes and hands.
Will we have a break soon? I need coffee and a cigarette. Let’s sneak out of the class to smoke – like real students. Can you roll me a cigarette? I thought you didn’t smoke. I don’t.
What does comradeship even mean to you? Maybe it’s a form of resistance against the isolation of contemporary life. This concept starts to unfold and comes alive in between the lectures as we bond over shared meals, thunderstorms, heavy rain, and late-night conversations. Solidarity here is a daily practice, a glue that puts the shattered pieces together.
Photo: Antonela Solenički
Should we be taking notes? What did you think of the lecture?
It seems like history has failed to provide us with the answers. Or maybe we are just looking for them in the wrong places. How do we deal with the past, how do we deal with the present? Anyway, what Boris Buden writes in the preface of his book Transition to Nowhere comes to my mind, he says: ‘(...) the art approached me in order to get in touch with history’.1 I wish to believe in searching for answers in art, but this hope needs to be exercised. With whispers of history lingering in my ears, I wonder what kind of words we will write the future with.
Photo: Antonela Solenički
It’s the end of May in Ljubljana and the weather is acting really silly. It’s the last day and now my jaw already hurts from talking in English. I’m gonna miss this pain soon, though. Is this the ‘on this side of the bridge’, bridge? No, I think it’s that one, let me see the video once again. It’s time to go home. Everyone is leaving; friends, students, artists, lecturers. Kiss-kiss. Let’s keep in touch. Bye-bye. How do you go back to normal life after summer school? Is this what you always do?
P.S.
Ljubljana is just a train ride from Zagreb.
The views and opinions published here mirror the principles of academic freedom and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the L'Internationale confederation and its members.
Related activities
-
–MSU ZagrebVan AbbemuseumModerna galerijaZRC SAZU
Open Call – School of Common Knowledge
MSU (Zagreb), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), MG+MSUM (Ljubljana), ZRC SAZU (Ljubljana) and L'Internationale invite applications for the new School of Common Knowledge (SCK) to be held in Zagreb and Ljubljana 24–29 May 2024. The School of Common Knowledge draws on the network, knowledge and experience of the L’Internationale museum confederation. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world. The SCK is built on the basis laid by the Glossary of Common Knowledge project initiated by Zdenka Badovinac and Moderna galerija (Ljubljana) and continues its co-learning methodology.
-
–MSU ZagrebVan AbbemuseumModerna galerijaZRC SAZU
School of Common Knowledge
School of Common Knowledge draws on the network, knowledge and experience of the L’Internationale museum confederation. Built on the basis laid by the Glossary of Common Knowledge, a project initiated by Zdenka Badovinac and Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana, it continues its co-learning methodology. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world.
-
–MACBA
The Open Kitchen. The fermented seed, colonialism and extractivism
The MACBA Kitchen is a working group situated against the backdrop of ecosocial crisis. Participants in the group aim to highlight the importance of intuitively imagining an ecofeminist kitchen, and take a particular interest in the wisdom of individuals, projects and experiences that work with dislocated knowledge in relation to food sovereignty.
-
MACBA
The Kitchen: Workshop by Marina Monsonís
The Kitchen is a meeting place open to the participation of all, especially people and organizations that want to share their knowledge and experiences around the kitchen.
-
–MSN
Multicultural Youth Center
The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, together with the confederation of museums L'Internationale, is establishing a Multicultural Youth Center. This is a unique space for 16-24 year olds to explore and develop their creativity, make new friends and hang out in a friendly and supportive environment.
-
–MACBA
Where are the Oases?
PEI OBERT seminar
with Kader Attia, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Emily Jacir, Achille Mbembe, Sarah Nuttall and Françoise VergèsAn oasis is the potential for life in an adverse environment.
-
MACBA
Mobile Garden. A Place to Meet
An open space, a social space. How could the Museum be more open to the needs of the neighbourhood?
-
Museo Reina Sofia
School of Commoning Practices
This exchange programme gathers different schools organized by volunteers and migrant communities in Athens (Open School for Migrants) and Madrid (School of Rights, Escuela de Español and Situated mediation School) in order to share their knowledge, exchange strategies and reflect on the experience of working together with migrant communities.
-
–Museo Reina Sofia
Team of Teams
This project researches citizen participation as a fundamental pillar in the creation of community.
-
–Museo Reina Sofia
Sustainable Art Production
The Studies Center of Museo Reina Sofía will publish an open call for 4 residencies of artistic practice for projects that address the emergencies and challenges derived from the climate crisis such as food sovereignty, architecture and sustainability, communal practices, diasporas and exiles or ecological and political sustainability, among others.
-
M HKA
SUPERHOST | Club Antena. Intimate listening and dancing experience
with Nele Möller, Farida Amadou, Le Réalism, Céline Gillain, Roberta Miss, Elena Colombi
CLUB ANTENA is an intimate listening and dancing session with a lecture, concert, performance, catering and DJ sets, exploring what it means to listen with our bodies.
-
Institute of Radical ImaginationMSU Zagreb
Red, Green, Black and White
A performative inquiry by Institute of Radical Imagination and MSU Zagreb
-
HKW
Tongue and Throat Memories
On hospitality and conviviality through food
Knowledges and convenings
Cooking Sessions -
–Moderna galerijaZRC SAZU
Summer School: Our Many Easts
Our Many Easts summer school is organised by Moderna galerija in Ljubljana in partnership with ZRC SAZU (the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts) as part of the L’Internationale project Museum of the Commons.
-
–Moderna galerijaZRC SAZU
Open Call – Summer School: Our Many Easts
Our Many Easts summer school takes place in Ljubljana 24–30 August and the application deadline is 15 March. Courses will be held in English and cover topics such as the legacy of the Eastern European avant-gardes, archives as tools of emancipation, the new “non-aligned” networks, art in times of conflict and war, ecology and the environment.
Related contributions
-
Dispatch: The Commonsverse and Situated Organisations – or why the era of big institutions will come to an end
Denise PolliniSchool of Common KnowledgeSituated OrganizationsMSU ZagrebModerna galerijaZRC SAZU -
Reading list: School of Common Knowledge 2024
School of Common KnowledgeSchool of Common KnowledgeSituated OrganizationsMSU ZagrebModerna galerijaZRC SAZU -
Lumbung practices to resist and collaborate through art
Constanza Yévenes BiénzobaslumbungSituated OrganizationsMuseo Reina SofiaEN es -
Some Guiding Terms for Lumbung Press: Defining “publishing”
Erick BeltránlumbungSituated OrganizationsMACBAEN es -
Performances from the opening of The Heritage of 1989. Case Study: The Second Yugoslav Documents Exhibition
Jusuf Hadžifejzović, Azra Akšamija, Ilija ŠoškićDialoguesModerna galerija -
Epistemologies of the South
Zdenka Badovinac, Jesús Carrillo, Patrick FloresDialoguesModerna galerija -
»We should never abandon the possibility of our active presence«
Zdenka Badovinac, Ieva Astahovska, Bermet Borubaeva, Darja Filippova, Nika Ham, Dorota Michalska, Radek Przedpełski, Ekaterina VorontsovaModerna galerija -
Our Movements Are Loud
Bridge RadioModerna galerijaHDK-Valand -
Tuning, Bias, and the Wild Beyond
Nora Akawi, Khyam AllamiModerna galerijaHDK-Valand -
Museums under Political Control
Workers from Moderna galerijaModerna galerija -
Discomfort at Dinner: The role of food work in challenging empire
Mary FawzyRecette. Reset. Recipes in and Beyond the InstitutionSituated Organizations -
Indra's Web
Vandana Singh... and the Earth alongPast in the PresentClimateZRC SAZU -
Mix tape: Let's Funk Up All Genders!
Materia Hache / Others to the FrontSonic CommonsSituated OrganizationsMuseo Reina SofiaEN es -
Towards Collective Learning, or, Decompartmentalizing Education
María Berríos, Fran MM Cabeza de Vaca, Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide, Nick AikensSituated Organizations -
The Silence Has Been Unfolding For Too Long
The Free Palestine Initiative CroatiaTowards Collective Study in Times of EmergencyPast in the PresentSituated OrganizationsInstitute of Radical ImaginationMSU Zagreb -
Everything will stay the same if we don’t speak up
L’Internationale ConfederationTowards Collective Study in Times of EmergencyStatements and editorialsPast in the PresentSituated Organizations -
War, Peace and Image Politics: Part 1, Who Has a Right to These Images?
Jelena VesićPast in the PresentZRC SAZU -
Dispatch: Notes on Separation and Conviviality
Raluca PopaSituated Organizationstranzit.ro -
To Build an Ecological Art Institution: The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life
Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu, Raluca VoineaArt for Radical Ecologies ManifestoClimateSituated Organizationstranzit.ro -
Dispatch: In between the lessons. Staying together in uncertain times, laughing in the face of trouble, and disobeying; the future belongs to us
Antonela SoleničkiSchool of Common KnowledgeSituated OrganizationsMSU ZagrebModerna galerijaZRC SAZU -
Dispatch: To whom it may concern – the voice of the censor and re-calibrating words as an act of survival
AnonymousSchool of Common KnowledgeSituated OrganizationsMSU ZagrebModerna galerijaZRC SAZU