POLSKA-ROSJA-UKRAINA-KULTURA

Mamy konstruktywną propozycję - zamiast "Roku Polski w Rosji" proponujemy organizację "Roku Polski na Ukrainie" oraz "Roku Ukrainy w Polsce". Taka zmiana, byłaby gestem solidarności naszego środowiska i państwa z Ukraińcami, i z wszystkimi ludźmi kultury na Ukrainie, którzy znaleźli się w niezwykle trudnym położeniu – w sytuacji bezpośredniego militarnego zagrożenia i okupacji części terytorium państwa. Byłoby to także finansowe wsparcie dla ukraińskich instytucji i bardzo wyraźny sygnał niezgody na politykę rosyjskiego rządu.

OFSW
OFSW

Artysci_proponuja__zamiast_w_Rosji_zrobmy_Rok_Polski

Rok Rosji na ukraińskim Krymie - Oleksiy Radynski

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Chto Djelat - prosba o zajecie stanowiska przez Manifesta

Dear all,
We – artists from the Chto Delat collective (Nikolay Oleinikov, Tsaplya Olga Egorova, Dmitry Vilensky) which is pre-invited to participate in Manifesta 10 in the Hermitage - are extremely concerned with the current escalation of the political situation in Russia. We know that this concern is shared by most participants and employees of the Manifesta project.

You know that we have not supported the idea of boycotting Manifesta X because we believe that Manifesta could be productively involved in the development of the democratic and alternative public sphere in Russia. Therefore we are doing our best to have a strong and legitimate contribution to this project. Until now we believed that many things could still be done to challenge the repressive consensus of local life in Russia. Now, however, we can no longer keep silent; we need to mobilize all possible forces to stop the war and a total crash of Russian civil society under the guise of patriotic hysteria.
Manifesta has never been and could not be simply a nice, polite art show, nor can it be a Potemkin village designed to enhance the reputation of the Russian state (if one could talk about such a “reputation” anymore). So in this crucial moment we appeal to Manifesta and the Hermitage to raise their voices in support of the antiwar protests in Russia.

Oficjalne stanowisko Manifesta

On March 11th, Manifesta Foundation responded to recent calls for boycotts, cancelation and postponement of Manifesta 10, planned to open at the State Hermitage Museum in early summer.
In this long-awaited statement, the foundation announced that it will not cancel under the present circumstances. Also, presumably responding to calls for the exhibition’s radicalization, curator Kasper König reaffirmed his commitment to a group show demonstrating the broadest possible spectrum of art’s possibilities, emphasizing that his contract allows artistic freedom - within the limits of the Russian law - and that he will (try) to keep the show free of censorship. But at the same time, he also restated his dislike for “cheap provocations” in topical political references, warning that Manifesta 10 at Hermitage could be “misused by political actors as a platform for their own self-righteous representation,” and insisting that “it is [his] hope to present far more than just commentary on the present political circumstances.” (http://manifesta.org/2014/03/manifesta-10-will-stay-in-st-petersburg/). It is clearly art over politics. Kaspar König’s most recent statement denigrates any attempts to address the present situation in Russia by artistic means, demoting them to “self-righteous representation” and “cheap provocation” and thus effectively preemptively censoring them.

We see now from this official reaction that neither curator nor institution are capable of rising to the challenge of a dramatically evolving political situation, and we cannot be held hostage by its corporate policies, however reasonable they would sound under different circumstance.
For this reason, we, the artists of Chto delat, have decided to withdraw our participation from the exhibition at Hermitage.

Sadly, Manifesta cannot rise to this challenge. Had the situation remained as it was, with a soft authoritarianism continuing to stagnate in Russia, the project might have been a positive factor for the further development of a fledgling public sphere. But as conditions worsen and reactionary forces grow stronger by the day, Manifesta has shown that it can respond with little more than bureaucratic injunctions to respect law and order in a situation where any and all law has gone to the wind. For that reason, any participation in the Manifesta 10 exhibition loses its initial meaning.
We have sympathy for the views expressed in the personal statement by Joanna Warsza, curator of Manifesta 10’s public program, and we would only be too happy to continue supporting her efforts. Nevertheless, her statement has a private quality, and the dangers to the project - censorship, manipulations of meaning, and intimidation, which she describes so accurately, are inevitable under current political escalation.

We are now beginning work on such a new project: a solidarity exhibition of Ukrainian and Russian artists, poets, intellectuals and cultural figures. At this terrible moment in our society’s history, we are ready to demonstrate our unity and the possibility of taking action against the war together, rising above the flood of hate, lies, manipulation, and direct violence, and not above politics.
We do not know how, when, or where this project will take place, but we are sure that working toward its realization, and not self-representation at Manifesta-Hermitage exhibition, is the only responsible way to proceed.