PROGRAM 1:
 

ANTIWARCOALITION .ART, Selection of videos curated by International Coalition of Cultural Workers Against the War in Ukraine
 

Selection:

Olia Sosnovskaya& a.z.h. (BY) - The F-Word, 2021, 12:10
Toni Meštrović (HR) - Brain Washing, 2000, 02:46
Ahmet Öğüt (TR) - Anti-tank, 2022, 00:33
Katarzyna Wojtczak (PL) - Passenger Pigeon, 2021, 12:15
Lala Aliyeva (AZ) - All they gathered were the pomegranates, 2021, 05:58
Hito Steyerl (DE) - o.T., 2022, 02:08
Lucas Gervilla (BR) - Deus luta, 2015, 06:58
Lesia Pcholka & Uladzimir Hramovich (BY) - The Last Pastoral, 2020, 08:52
Sasha Kurmaz (UA) - Alarming Symphony, 2021, 04:12
Iaroslav Pobezhan (UA) - 8th or 9th of May 2018, 2018, 26:09
Walid Siti (GB) - Just a Game!, 2022, 05:31
Maria Stoianova (UA) - Ma, 2017, 17:00
Zoya Laktionova (UA) - Diorama, 2018, 11:18
Larion Lozovoy (UA) - The Machine and the Garden, 2022, 04:49
Igor Sevcuk (NL) - Ramblings, 2022, 08:31
Valentyna Petrova (UA) - War, 2022, 03:45
 

Statement:

All the works relate to the questions of the choreography of war, different forms of oppression, and the policy of memory, as well as give a wider view on the language of video art. What tools does a contemporary artist have to reveal the mechanisms of war or ideological background of fascism? How is the Russian-Ukrainian war embedded in the global political, economic, and media context? 

 

About Platform:

International Coalition of Cultural Workers Against the War in Ukraine is an open online platform that collects, shares and distributes statements against war created by artists from all over the world. Driven by the Russian aggression and war against Ukraine, this platform presents an opportunity to protest against war, dictatorship, and authoritarianism. It is an opportunity to express solidarity with those in Ukraine who are affected by the Russian military aggression, and with those resisting colonial, patriarchal, imperialistic, and political repressions and terror elsewhere.

This platform was initiated by Ambasada Kultury and a group of Belarusian cultural workers: Anna Chistoserdova, Oxana Gourinovitch, Valentina Kiselyova, Aleksander Komarov, Lena Prents, Antonina Stebur, Maxim Tyminko, who left the country between 1994 and 2021 due to dissent with the political regime. Later two Ukrainian curators Natasha Chychasova and Tatiana Kochubinska joined the team. Ambasada Kultury is based in Vilnius (LT) and Berlin (DE).

Antiwarcoalition.art is a part of The European Pavilion, an international programme of the European Cultural Foundation. Project also supported by Goethe-Institut e.V., The Danish Cultural Institute in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Swedish Institute, Human Rights House.

WEB: https://antiwarcoalition.art

 

PROGRAM 2:

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"I Would Have Freed Myself", Program of films - Helena Deda and Alex Faoro, Kosovo/USA (2019 - 2022)

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My Bones Ache, 2021, 05:08

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A father and daughter walk through the woods. A mother and daughter follow the same path. Built around one of Helena’s poem’s about her mother Marta and her maternal grandfather Nue Gashi, My Bones Ache explores the shared qualities of objects that instantiate memory; that is, more specifically, the relationship between photographs and bones. Operating within this conceptual framework, the video constructs an intimate genealogical portrait that addresses subjects of intergenerational trauma, the woman’s experience, and the realities of coming-of-age in a post-war region.

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Ditët e Luftës, 2019, 03:15

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Helena was five years old when the Kosovo War began in February of 1998. She and her family were forced to flee their homes as Serbian soldiers swept the countryside massacring ethnic Albanians. Ditët e Luftës is a meditation on these experiences of war and displacement.

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here and there, then and now, 2022, 30:53

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Between 1998 and 1999, during the War of Kosovo, hundreds of thousands of Kosovar citizens were forcefully displaced under threat of violence. Many were killed, and many are still yet to be accounted for. In early 2022, during the outset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Helena’s mother Marta traveled from Kosovo to live with us in New York for six months, on the remainder of her visa. This video was made during the mass exodus of Ukrainian citizens from their homes, and considers the geopolitical ramifications of the war in the Western Balkans; specifically Kosovo and Serbia. During this same period, Helena and I recorded various activities and conversations with her mother; cooking, going to the park, talking with friends. Interweaving this highly intimate material with contemporaneous Albanian news broadcasts, this project attempts to navigate the complex intersection of place, time, memory, war, history and modernity.

Memorja e Kthimit, 2022, 14:29

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Memorja e Kthimit (Memory of Return) is an impression - a displaced recollection - of Helena's journey home after more than ten years abroad. Traveling from Kosova, through the mountains of Montenegro and along the Adriatic coast of Albania, we retrace the path taken by Helena and countless others during Serbian incursion and NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia from 1998-1999. Interweaving super 8mm, digital video and archival material, and incorporating various conversations from our travels, the film reassembles the fractured and overlapping memories of Helena's journey(s) home; as a woman, as an immigrant, as a refugee.

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Statement:

Between 1998 and 1999, during the War of Kosovo, hundreds of thousands of Kosovar
citizens were forcefully displaced under threat of violence. Many were killed, and many
are still yet to be accounted for. Even today - almost a quarter of a century later - bodies
are still being discovered throughout the country and neighboring regions. At the same
time, historical tensions germinating from the war in Ukraine threaten to provoke a
renewed ideological conflict between Belgrade and Pristina; one that would invariably
lead to similar displacement and catastrophe.

Amidst this backdrop, multidisciplinary artists Helena Deda and Alex Faoro have
created a series of films that contend with these visceral, perpetual and immeasurable
damages of war; through a comparable form of retrieval and exhumation. Drawing on a
number of Helena’s childhood and adolescent experiences - using a variety of found
footage and personal materials - the duo creates thoughtful and penetrating works that
address pervasive modern conditions like victimhood and refugeedom, and reflect their
own universalist sensibilities.

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About the authors:

Helena Deda is a writer and photographer from the Republic of Kosova (former
Yugoslavia). Her text and images address her experiences during and after the War
of Kosova. Alex Faoro is a library worker, curator, researcher and artist. Utilizing
personal and historiographical materials, his works explore memory and the
mediating qualities of images.

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ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMS:

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 "Creative video workshop" for primary school children, organized by the University of Split (UNIST), workshop leader: Bruno Pavić

October 22-29, 2022, University Gallery

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Lecture on video art and presentation of the exhibition for high school students, in cooperation with the School of Design, Graphics and Sustainable Construction - Split, lecturer: Bruno Pavić

October 24, 2022, at 07:30 p.m., Prokultura - House of Language and Culture Peristil powered by OTP bank

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 Lecture  and presentation of the "Antiwar Coalition" platform for film and video students of the Art Academy in Split, lecturer: Maxim Tyminko

October 25, 2022, 06:00 p.m. - 07:30 p.m., Art Academy in Split (Fortress Gripe)

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