The Cities-Hospitals programme will host the artists and researchers Valeria Graziano, Ivana Kalc, Olga Dimitrijević and Fox & His Friends at various locations around Rijeka from 5 to 10 July. We will focus on the field of the psyche, work and space in the (post)pandemic Rijeka, the recent European Capital of Culture, through workshops, performance walks and the closing music picnic on the grass.
Fitness and health are the ideals of modern society – both at the level of shaping individual lives and identities and at the level of city/regional and national policies. Rijeka and its surroundings have historically been shaped as tourist spas and present-day public policies promote the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County as a place of dental and wellness tourism, health and spa centres.
However, it seems that we – cultural workers – are not part of these policies, that is, we are not their so-called target group. The same fate is shared by many other workers, forced to heal the psychological wounds of late capitalism within their friend and family networks, and not to treat numerous health issues at all – due to the collapse of the public healthcare system and lack of funds to access the private one.
Cultural workers are among those most affected by the current crisis, which has dramatically deepened the existing vulnerability and precariousness of the entire sector. In the context of Rijeka, as the pandemic capital of culture, this situation is particularly tense – due to the lack of programming funds, as well as the inability to create new jobs in the post-ECC period, many will end up on the psychological and material “street“, which will force them to change professions or find their own crisis solutions.
In the form of performance walks, workshops and picnic, we will deal with the interconnected fields of the psyche, work and space in the (post)pandemic Rijeka, trying to find collective methods and practices of “healing“.
WORKSHOPS:
Valeria Graziano – Instructions to the Double
5 July 2021, 3 Pm – 7 PM, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka
Applications https://tinyurl.com/4e5hcr4d
During the workshop we will be introduced to a specific technique developed within Italian radical movements of the 1970s that will enable us to narrate and share different toxicities we face as workers (within our permanent or temporary jobs), across different professional backgrounds and practical experiences.
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PERFORMANCE WALKS:
1. Ivana Kalc – Good practice cabinet
7 July 2021, 5 PM – 8 PM, Tito Square/Kont
Applications https://tinyurl.com/4e5hcr4d
Good practice cabinet will take us on a performance walk around the city where through a number of easy and fun exercises we will do together (walking with eyes closed, walking/marching together and live sculpture) we will have the opportunity to observe the echoes of the past, pandemic (ECC) year, find our own crisis solutions and rebuild our place in this city.
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2. Olga Dimitrijević – Back to the Future
9 July 2021, 5 PM – 8 PM, Bus Station – Žabica
Applications https://tinyurl.com/4e5hcr4d
The playwright Olga Dimitrijević will take us on a walk around the city through five spatial stations related to health, work, culture and leisure. Together, we go back to the kind of future we would like to see and imagine the possibilities of life and work in the Rijeka of the future.
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PICNIC:
Fox & His Friends – Disco Hospital
10 July 2021, 5 PM – 8 PM, Park Nikole Hosta
Brutally invigorating music picnic on the grass builds on the tradition of sound interventions by John Balance, Peter Christopherson and Genesis P-Orridge, and their groups Coil, Psychic TV and Time Machines that experimented with sound frequencies to achieve a therapeutic and calming effect.
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Program is part of the two-year project Cities-Hospitals developed by Graz based organization f.act, that aims at fostering a process of collective rethinking of disease, including its spatial manifestations as well as the politics and practices of healing.