at Weltmuseum Wien October 8th, 2020 to April 3rd, 2021
Curated by Marina Gržinić, Christina Jauernik and Sophie Uitz
Trailer-teaser of the exhibition in Weltmuseum Wien
The exhibition Stories of Traumatic Pasts: Counter-Archives for Future Memories focuses on three European regions, their stories, and their current experiences of collective amnesia in relation to traumatic events from the past: Belgian colonial rule in the Congo, Austria after the “Anschluss” in 1938, and the denial of war crimes since 1990 after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Participating artists Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe Lana Čmajčanin Bojan Djordjev Dani Gal Siniša Ilić Adela Jušić Martin Krenn Monique Mbeka Phoba Nicolas Pommier Anja Salomonowitz Joëlle Sambi Nzeba Arye Wachsmuth Valerie Wolf Gang
Posters and works developed by students of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (workshop with Arye Wachsmuth): Negra Bernhard Henrie Dennis Iklim Doğan Robert Jolly Lars* Kollros Shaya Safaisini Hiba Shammout Sophie Anna Stadler Pia S. Weissinger Ondrej Zoricak
The digital archive: COUNTERING THE GENEALOGY OF AMNESIA
7.10.2020 Opening speeches and performance (closed for public due to Covid-19)
Speeches: C. Schicklgruber (director Weltmuseum Wien), J. Hartle (rector Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), S. Uitz and M. Gržinić (curators). Opening performance by Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe and Mani Obeya.
8.10.2020 Symposium (closed for public due to Covid-19)
Taking part in situ or via zoom:
Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe Lana Čmajčanin Bojan Djordjev Dani Gal Siniša Ilić Adela Jušić Martin Krenn Nicolas Pommier Anja Salomonowitz Joëlle Sambi Nzeba Arye Wachsmuth Valerie Wolf Gang Lars* Kollros Mika Maruyama Shaya Safaisini Pia Weissinger
Moderation by Marina Gržinić Organisation by Sophie Uitz
October 12, 2019 Linz Workshop: 25 years anniversary of maiz
WORKSHOP, PART OF 25 YEARS ANNIVERSARY OF MAIZ
Where: Altes Rathaus, Linz
Date: 12.10.2019
Taking part in the discussion: Rodrigo Cesar Benedetti, Chiara Benedetti, Michaela Lehofer, Nadja Meisterhans, Ursula M. Lücke, and Rubia Salgado
WORKSHOP TITLE: Fighting racism, deconstructing white privilege-cultural interventions, artistic projects, political strategies
Marina Gržinić in collaboration with Tjaša Kancler trans*activist, researcher
In the workshop, we depart from the research we did, Tjaša Kancler trans*activists and me, on questions of knowledge resistance and trans*. Therefore in the first part of the workshop, I presented artistic projects that have contributed historically and currently to the production of discourses, activities, politics, labor, education in order to combat racism and structures of power. In the second part of the workshop, we discussed formats of racism, the processes of enduring racialization and modes of empowerment.
Marina Gržinić is a philosopher, theoretician, and artist. Since 2003, she is Professor for Post-Conceptual Art Practices at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. She did a series of collaborative projects with Tjaša Kancler, trans* activist, artist, researcher, and associate professor at the University of Barcelona. Kancler is a co-editor of the journal Desde el margen (www.desde-elmargen.net).
March 11, 2019 – March 26, 2019 Vienna Workshop: on Hannah Arendt’s political thinking
Workshop with Ruth Kager and the students of the Art Studio for Post-conceptual Art Practices (PCAP) and the students in general of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, at AkBild, Vienna.
Hannah Arendt’s political thought centers around a political space that draws on common action. Starting from this insight, each session of the workshop is dedicated to one of Arendt’s basic notions: the public realm, the societal and the private, action, power and judging. Building on these notions, the workshop investigates the constraints and potentialities of politics as thought by Arendt.
The contents are elaborated interactively, based on the sources below. The following questions will guide, amongst others, plenary discussions and group activities.
11/3/2019 // INTRODUCTION // THE PUBLIC REALM What is the public realm? Sources: Arendt, Hannah (1973) [1958], The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 50-57. Arendt, Hannah (2010) [1960], Vita activa oder Vom tätigen Leben (München: Piper), 62-73.
12/3/2019 // THE SOCIETAL AND THE PRIVATE What are the relations between the social, the private and the public realm? Sources: Arendt, Hannah (1973) [1958], The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 68-72. Arendt, Hannah (2010) [1960], Vita activa oder Vom tätigen Leben (München: Piper), 81-89.
18/3/2019 // ACTION What are the characteristics of action? How is action connected to politics? Sources: Arendt, Hannah (1973) [1958], The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 175-180. Arendt, Hannah (2010) [1960], Vita activa oder Vom tätigen Leben (München: Piper), 213-222.
19/3/2019 // POWER What is the difference between power and violence? How is power connected to different forms of government? Sources: Arendt, Hannah (1973) [1958], The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 199-206. Arendt, Hannah (2010) [1960], Vita activa oder Vom tätigen Leben (München: Piper), 251-262.
26/3/2019 // THE DESTRUCTION OF POLITICAL POWER // JUDGING How is political power destructed? What is judging? Sources: Arendt, Hannah (1951), The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace), 123-134. Arendt, Hannah (2014) [1955], Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft. Antisemitismus, Imperialismus, totale Herrschaft (München: Piper) 286-307. Arendt, Hannah (1961), “The Crisis in Culture. Its Social and Its Political Significance”, in: ibid., Between Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking), 217-226. Arendt, Hannah (2012) [1960], “Kultur und Politik”, in: dies., Zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft. Übungen im politischen Denken I, herausgegeben von Ursula Ludz (München: Piper), 296-302.
A symposium on the silencing of colonialism, anti-Semitism, and contemporary turbo-fascist nationalism in Belgium, Austria, and former Yugoslavia.
The international and interdisciplinary symposium, open to public audiences, is built as a podium for research and exchange, dissemination of knowledge, and discussion.
The two-day-long symposium hosted invited speakers that cover the central topics of our research in the three respective territories: memory and history, archives, and the axis of power and knowledge. The general objective of the symposium was to denote gaps between processes of institutionalized silencing, hegemonic processes of oblivion and amnesia, and processes of instituting power through building counter-memory and counter-history projects, interventions, and resistance. The aim was to demonstrate how processes for the establishment of counter-memory and counter-history can open up spaces for new ways of forming radicalized constituent politics. Collective struggles and oppositionality were investigated as the basis of a possible dismantling of neoliberal and necrocapitalist societies by means of re-empowering history that crushes silences.
Opening: Karin Riegler, Vice-Rector for Teaching, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (image: Christina Jauernik)
Opening: Marina Gržinić, head of the research project “Genealogy of Amnesia,” Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (image: Christina Jauernik)
Opening: Sophie Uitz, researcher "Genealogy of Amnesia" project, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (image: Christina Jauernik)
Opening Keynote: Gloria Wekker (Utrecht University), "A Genealogy of Amnesia in Europe" (image: Christina Jauernik)
Opening Keynote: Gloria Wekker (Utrecht University), "A Genealogy of Amnesia in Europe" (image: Christina Jauernik)
Gloria Wekker (Utrecht Unviersity) in conversation with Birgit Sauer (University of Vienna) (image: Valerija Zabret)
Friday/Saturday, November 9-10
1 of 14
Marina Gržinić (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna): Burdened by the past, re-thinking the future (image: Dominik Szereday)
Marina Gržinić (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna): Burdened by the past, re-thinking the future (image: Dominik Szereday)
Collectif Mémoire Coloniale et Lutte contre les Discriminations (Brussels): The Challenges of De-Colonial Movements – The Afrodescendants Facing the Colonial Denial and the Mutations of the Colonial Propaganda in Belgium (image: Dominik Szereday)
Kalvin Soiresse Njall and Geneviève Kaninda (CMCLD) (image: Dominik Szereday)
Araba Evelyn Johnston-Arthur (Howard University, Washington DC) (image: Dominik Szereday)
Ruth Beckermann (Vienna) in conversation with Michael Loebenstein (Austrian Filmmuseum Vienna) (image: Dominik Szereday)
Sefik Tatlić (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) (image: M. Gržinić)
Pedro Monaville (New York University Abu Dhabi) (image: Sophie Uitz)
Ruth Wodak (Lancaster University and University of Vienna) and Markus Rheindorf (University of Vienna) (image: Gržinić)
Sophie Uitz (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) (image: Christina Jauernik)
Max Silverman (University of Leeds) (image: Christina Jauernik)
Nejra Nuna Čengić (University of Graz) (image: Uitz)
Shirley Anne Tate (Leeds Beckett University) (image: A. Sekulić)
Shirley Anne Tate (Leeds Beckett University) (image: Aleksandra Sekulić)
A series of three lectures by Marina Grzinic and Sophie Uitz is held during the summer term 2018 at the Post-Conceptual Art Practices study programme (Vienna Academy of Fine Arts). Each of the lecture includes a screening of documentary film and introduces one of the three research territories of the “Genealogy of Amnesa” to the students.
Part I Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
23 April 2018, 4-7 PM
Presentation of the research project “Genealogy of Amnesia: Rethinking the Past for a New Future of Conviviality”, by Marina Grzinic and Sophie Uitz.
Introduction, screening and discussion of “King Leopold’s Ghost” (2006, 108min, documentary) by Pippa Scott and Oreet Rees – a documentary about the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium, based on the book by Adam Hochschild King Leopold Ghost from 1998.
Part II The Yugoslavian War
14 May 2018, 4-7 PM
Introduction, screening and discussion of Valentini Areh’s documentary “Radovan Karadzic’s Secret Plans” (2016, 51min, documentary for television).
The TV film shows newly retrieved materials and accounts obtained at the trial of Radovan Daradzic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Hague Tribunal. The documentary was premiered two days before the final sentence to Karadzic at the Haag Tribunal, 24 March 2016. Karadzic was sentenced to fourty years for Srebrenica genocide in BiH, Amont other criminal acts.
Valentin Areh is a Slovenian journalist, war correspondent and writer. He participated in 1991 as a soldier in the short Slovenian war for independence. He subsequently attended Ljubljana University, studying history and sociology. Areh has fiftenn years of experience as a war correspondent in places such as Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was one of the few journalists to remain in Kosovo during the Kosovo War of 1999 and he survived a tortuous escape out of the country during NATO’s war to expel Serbian forces.
Part III Remembrance and oblivion of Nazi crimes in Austria
4 June 2018, 4-7 PM
Screening of “Night and Fog” (French original title: Nuit et brouillard; 1956, 32min, documentary short film). Directed by Alain Resnais, it was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The title is taken from the notorious “Nacht und Nebel” (German for “Night and Fog”) program of abductions and disappearances decreed by the Nazis on 7 December 1941.
Screening of “East of War” (German original title: Jenseits des Krieges; 1996), a film by Ruth Beckermann (cinematography Peter Roehsler, editing Gertraud Luschützky).
White-tiled rooms, neon lighting; on the walls black and white photographs documenting the atrocities committed by the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in WW2. Against this background former soldiers talk about their experiences beyond the bounds of “normal” warfare. An uncompromising film on remembrance and oblivion. Ruth Beckermann’s film doesn’t duplicate the exhibition, but begins where it ends: in a commentary. Its subject-matter is less about history than remembering, less about the past than the present.
The images and chronologies in these displayed materials are coming from the catalogue/publication Words Precede Actions with the subtitle The Context of Language, Racism, Economy and Power by Marika Schmiedt published in 2018 that displays racist genealogies of discrimination and the ghettoization of the Roma people in the West and East of Europe.
One part of her analysis consists of the research of racism, linking them to histories of the relationship between race and physical anthropology. As “racist scientific results” are used in sorting and exposing bones and crania collections in the museum. This takes us via Schmiedt to the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Vienna that has one of the biggest crania collections, assembled by the Austrian anthropologist Augustin Weisbach (1837–1914) in the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe. The anthropological collection at the Natural History Museum in Vienna includes 40,000 objects, human remains, including skulls, bones, hair, and body drains. The collection mostly contains relics from historical and prehistoric times, but also problematic chapters of human remains that mark colonial and National Socialist times.
The other part presents a gallery of “skeletons of important Austrian men” falling out of the closet of Austrian history. All these men are not solely vicious racists, having programmatic anti-Romaism agendas, but they are all anti-Semites:
Albert Geßmann (1852–1920)
Karl Lueger (1844–1910),
Josef Weinheber (1892–1945)
Taras Borodajkewycz (1902‒1984)
Josef Weinheber (1892 – 1945) a “respected” Austrian man, poet and essayist, who was largely under the literary influences of Rainer Maria Rilke, Anton Wildgans and Karl Kraus, was a member of the Nazi Party from 1931 until 1933 and from 1944 on. He committed at the time of the advance of the Red Army, leaving behind a clear-sighted parting letter. He was buried in the village of Kirchstetten, Austria, where he had lived since 1936. The municipality and the citizens of Kirchstetten, have honored for years the “great poet” Weinheber by transforming his house into a museum, dedicating a street, a square and a highway bridge in his name, decided to name a kindergarten in his honor. (From the text by Marina Grzinic in Words Precede Actions, 2018).
Lecture and introduction to Marika Schmiedt’s catalogue
by Marina Grzinic
[…] Words precede actions: language, words, and discourses have a powerful impact on concrete social issues, political decisions, media content, knowledge institutions, labor markets, the shaping of histories, memories, and subjectivities and defining of citizenship. Through mass media, public opinions, and widespread anti-Roma graffiti in public space, words have set in motion actions of constant dehumanization of the Roma, leading their conditions of poverty, segregation, and seclusion to become part of another rhetoric – the rhetoric of naturalization of these conditions. We can find at least three forms of displaying these processes of racialization in Schmiedt’s work. The second form that is as well central to the research Genealogies of amnesia displays mechanisms that I will label the gallery of “skeletons of important Austrian men” falling out of the closet of Austrian history. All these men, we are soon to learn, almost dumbstruck, are not solely vicious racists, having programmatic anti-Romaism agendas, but are all anti-Semites. Reviewing this frightening collection of men, which is by no means exclusively historical, but instead, reverberates persistently in present times, identified by generations of critical positions in Austria as the nation’s post-Nazi times. This past is preoccupying as hyper right wing neoliberal necrocapitalism is at its full power here and now.
The catalogue presentation at the VBKÖ was contextualized by an exhibition of Marika Schmiedt’s recent investigations on the Nazi-past of the Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs (VBKÖ).
