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Dispatch: In between the lessons. Staying together in uncertain times, laughing in the face of trouble, and disobeying; the future belongs to us

Antonela Solenički
 

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.

Boris Buden, preface, Transition to Nowhere: Art in History after 1989, Berlin: Archive Books, 2020.Boris Buden, preface, Transition to Nowhere: Art in History after 1989, Berlin: Archive Books, 2020.Boris Buden, preface, Transition to Nowhere: Art in History after 1989, Berlin: Archive Books, 2020.Boris Buden, preface, Transition to Nowhere: Art in History after 1989, Berlin: Archive Books, 2020.

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