From the Citizens to Their City

On 15 and 16 October, come to the Palach Youth Cultural Centre (OKC Palach) in Rijeka to the fourth edition of the Smoqua International Festival of Queer and Feminist Culture. The festival is the result of joint efforts of the civil society organizations LORI and Pariter and the Centre for Women’s Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka and artistic organisation From the Citizens to their City.

The GSG in the framework of Smoqua 4 Festival programme will give you an insight into art activist and research projects that speak about the topics of general interest using artistic means. This year, we also focus on public health topics relevant to society as a whole, but which are especially harsh for underprivileged communities, such as people of different sexual orientation, women, refugees and people removed from society through the penal system.

Programme

• 15 October at 19:00 zoom presentation of the AIDS – Based on a True Story project, Vladimir Čajkovac
• 15 October at 20:00 opening of the exhibition Public Health – Beyond Reach
  • Pandemic – Based on a True Story, Walk of Pawns and In Plain Sight
    The exhibition is open on weekdays from 17:00 – 20:00, from 15 to 23 October.
    For additional appointments and guided tours contact, info@gsg.hr

• 16 October at 18:00 zoom presentation of the In Plain Sight project
  Cassils and Rafa Esparza

• 16 October at 19:00 zoom presentation of the Walk of Pawns project
  Citizens of Rijeka and Tools for Action

All zoom presentations will be live-streamed on Građanke svom gradu (From the Citizens to Their City) Facebook page.

Based on a True Story

programme begins with the presentation of the research titled Pandemic – Based on a True Story, which, based on the media representations of AIDS, talks about the relationship of politics, health authorities and public opinion towards this disease. The research was initiated before the SARS COVID 19 pandemic and the primarily sexual transmission of AIDS, as well as the initial association with the marginalized communities, made this disease a category unto itself. However, by seeing how the public health authorities, as well as the awareness-raising groups, dealt with a state of emergency through visual language we can make a comparison with the present moment. The presentation of the research Pandemic – Based on a True Story will also present the documentation of the research and exhibition AIDS – Based on a True Story opened at the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden in 2015, which has the largest collection of HIV/AIDS posters in the world – the research project by the art historian and curator Vladimir Čajkovac.

Election Pawns

We raise the issue of hampering access to public health care services through the Walk of Pawns project. This is a group action and public activist art performance with the participation of the Citizens of Rijeka, through which they advocated the establishment of a clear legal framework for free access to medically assisted termination of pregnancy. One should strive for broader access to sex education and contraception, prevention of discrimination in the workplace, increased accessibility of kindergartens and schools and a higher quality of life. However, in the midst of the re-patriarchalization of society, women who, for various reasons cannot carry their pregnancy to term, bear the brunt of the pronatalist policy and the institute of appeal of conscience. The Walk of Pawns was a public performance in which eight people dressed as pawns in the colours of the ultra-right platform the Walk for Life tried to warn of the political pressure of the right-wing groups propagating their backwards views ahead of the elections. The project will be presented by the Citizens of Rijeka and activist art collective Tools for Action from the Netherlands, creators of the artistic concept of the action.

The Sky is Not the Limit

In a pandemic, when respecting the required physical distance if often hindered due to the nature of one’s work, housing conditions or emotional need for intimacy, the health of the people detained in the penal system is further compromised. The situation is even more difficult with the refugees in the American asylum-seeker centres whose human rights are continuously violated and who lack sufficient hygiene supplies. A large-scale project In Plain Sight includes 80 artists who call for the abolition of the centres, as well as an entire American fleet of sky-typing planes. On the occasion of the American Independence Day, this project pointed to the difficult situation in the asylum-seeker centres that disappeared from media reports due to the pandemic. At the same time, the messages written in the air above 80 locations were intended as a sign of support to detainees. During the time when everyone’s movement is restricted, this art activist project uses innovative methods of communication and warns that the disease is even more burdensome in asylum-seeker centres. The project will be presented by its co-creators, Canadian transgender artist Cassils and American artist Rafa Esparza.

Participation of Cassils and Tools for Action @ Smoqua is supported by the Ministry of Culture and the work of GSG is supported Musagetes foundation.