From the Citizens to Their City

On Thursday 13 June at 19:00 there will be a presentation of the Slovenian artist Maja Hodošček in a dialogue with the art historian Irena Borić. Along with the talk and video screening in the From the Citizens to Their City’s premises in Križanićeva 6a, there will also be the promotion of the Second Issue of the GSG Magazine for Contemporary Art and Social Issues of From the Citizens to Their City Initiative that focuses on artistic and non-artistic practices aimed at developing social cohesion and strengthening disadvantaged communities.

Art historian Irena Borić will hold a talk with the visual artists and educator Maja Hodošček focusing on her practice that is closely related to education and which she carries out through educational institutions or workshops in cultural institutions.

In her projects, mainly through workshops with high school students, Hodošček tries to infiltrate the existing educational system and raise questions that will encourage young people to become active members of society.

She mostly documents these processes in video form, and in collaboration with the participants she also chooses the direction the project will take, as well as the method of its presentation. At the Knowledge Exchange 7 you will have the opportunity to see the following video works:

• Training (2019) where Hodošček follows a workshop organised for schoolteachers, the goal of which was to introduce the idea of entrepreneurship as a model for an advanced way of teaching.
• We Need a Title (2014), created in collaboration with six members of a school debate club who participated in a sort of parallel curriculum initiated by the artist, departs from the idea of potentiality of the Non-Aligned Movement.
• If You Remember, I Always Talked About the Future (2013) follows a young man born in the second half of the nineties and gives an insight into his take on the history of Yugoslavia, a country he never lived in.

As we learn from Irena Borić’s interview with Hodošček in the Second Issue of GSG Magazine, through her work Hodošček aims to inspire the collective sense among youth as well as to introduce social and political topics in the field of education through contemporary art.

Along with the presentation of Hodošček’s practice, the Second Issue of GSG Magazine for Contemporary Art and Social Issues of From the Citizens to Their City Initiative also brings Sherif Rushdy’s text about the methods of work in communities and education of future managers from his position as a community development manager, as well as about the importance of using artistic methods for developing social cohesion and imagining the future models of coexistence. Rushdy discusses techniques employed in many areas of life that open up communication channels which would otherwise remain unexplored.

In their text Learning from Zemlja art historians Ivana Hanaček and Ana Kutleša cover a long historical period starting from the time between the two world wars to today. Going back to the past, the authors are trying to point to the paradigmatic difference between the art practices of the first half of the 20th century, which were directly related to political movements, and present-day practices that are often focused on general values and do not side with concrete political programs, putting into question the effectiveness of the values on which they are based.

The contribution of the Belgrade-based duo Kurs, selected through the public call Invisible Barriers – Visible Shifts, is the first elaboration of their proposal for a public intervention in Rijeka. The proposal is based on a number of archival photographs. It covers the history of the location and sometimes emphasizes even mundane gestures that point to the necessity of action through the collective effort for the benefit of the community.