Chto Delat International School of Emergencies
Against oblivion
Altars, time capsules and the rituals of living monuments. Practice of commemoration (Part 1)
A series of workshops
Format
A series of workshops
Registration recommended.
Event information
How does a community survive and resist? Which memory is celebrated and which one has been erased? How can we collectively reactivate a re-membering? In this workshop, participants will investigate strategies to reject the social amnesia of coloniality, de-monumentalize history and perform a counter memory.
Through political and ceremonial collective gestures – such as building an altar, celebrating the memory of the dead ancestors, collecting items for a time capsule for physical and spiritual survival – Chto Delat International will share tools of remembrance, healing, solidarity, care, as a practice of persistence and of becoming a community. Participants will discuss their personal and historical struggles, stories, s/heroes, places and memories as well as investigate local sites of public gatherings. The group will assemble a temporary altar and/or time capsule and perform a ritual to activate these material objects and introduce different methods of commoning.
This session:
Lecture “The transformation of Monumentality”
Introduction of the participants in relation to their personal practices of commemoration.
It is possible to participate in any sessions but we keep a consecutive development from sessions to the final presentation.
Short biography
The international collective Chto Delat (What is to be done?) was founded in early 2003 in Petersburg by an international workgroup of artists, critics, philosophers, and writers with the goal of merging political theory, research, art, and activism. The artistic works of Chto Delat are always based on deep, interdisciplinary, participatory and collective research methods and implies non-academic forms of knowledge. The collective has established a long collaboration with different social movements, think-tanks, academies and different international and Germany based art institutions (such as HFBK Hamburg, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Haus Kulturen der Welt, Art Laboratorium Berlin and the others. The artistic works of the collective are represented by KOW Berlin. In the last 2 decades the collective was often commissioned to realize a large-scale public art project, many of them dedicated to the politics of memory and creating alternative monuments.
Since September 2022 all members of Chto Delat were forced to leave Russia and in exile has initiated The School of Emergencies. The school of emergency faculty is based on the expertise of members of Chto Delat collective which includes renowned scholars like Oxana Timopheeva, Artemy Magun and artists Tsaplya Olga Egorova and Dmitry Vilensky.
Selected commissions for the projects in public spaces:
2018 Festival Fast Forward, Athens (Park Fables)
2017 Nuit Blanche Toronto and Paris (Monument to the century of Revolutions)
2015 Festival Kortrijk Congé, Belgium (All Our Futures…)
2015 Creative Time Summit (Curriculum).
2014 The Wiener Festwochen (Face to Face with Monument)
With collective Chto Delat Dmitry Vilensky have participated in numerous international exhibitions.
Location
SCHOOL OF SURVIVAL, Hall for Contemporary Art
Language
English
Information for participants
The so-called SURVIVAL PASS, which can be obtained free of charge on request when you first enter the exhibition, allows unlimited free access to the exhibition and participation in the SCHOOL OF SURVIVAL.
Prior registration is not required. Once the 35 slots for the SCHOOL OF SURVIVAL are filled, the course is considered full. Please arrive on time accordingly. For group visits with more than 8 people, we kindly request prior arrangement via besuch@deichtorhallen.de.
All offerings of the SCHOOL OF SURVIVAL can be attended without prior knowledge. Materials will be provided on-site unless otherwise specified. Feel free to bring personal materials that are important to you for the workshop.