Chisinau, Republic of Moldova; 2012
By Stefan Rusu, KSAK-Center for Contemporary Art, Chisinau
DRIFTING IDENTITIES takes place within a series of public events organized by the KSAK Center in Chisinau - such as a colloquium, a production workshop and a public program/exhibition. It will be organized in the frame of HEICO in partnership with the Heinrich-Boell-Foundation Brandenburg/Germany, SPACES/Slovak Republic, Art Today Association Plovdiv/Bulgaria, Art&Cultural Studies Laboratory/Armenia and GeoAIR Association/Georgia.
The project section that will be realized in Chisinau under the title DRIFTING IDENTITIES will be based on researching, documenting and archiving aspects of identity phenomena located in the past and present of the post-socialist societies and will consist of a Colloquium, Production Workshop and Public Program/Exhibition where a number of curators and artists will present their projects and contributions to the project.
DRIFTING IDENTITIES Colloquium will be focused on the common artistic contention and research of the project, which mediates between the similar cultural identities in Eastern Europe to employ new artistic and cultural practice of European understanding and will gather, beside the representatives of the partner organizations, around 20 participants (10 artists from Georgia, Slovakia, Armenia, Bulgaria and Germany, 7 local artists and 3 curators/art historians). The participants will present a number of visual art projects as relevant data that comment on the evolution of the social engineering strategies in its current state (study cases: Slovakia, Bulgaria, Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Armenia).
On the regional policy level the project will create an opportunity for cross-cultural exchange and cooperation between contemporary art practitioners from EU-countries (Germany, Slovakia) and East-European countries (Moldova, Georgia, Bulgaria and Armenia).
The main purpose of the project is oriented toward developing the abilities of artists and curators, theoreticians for researching, monitoring, documenting and archiving aspects of identity phenomena located in the past and present of the post-socialist societies.
The project is also oriented toward training, educating the young generation of contemporary artists with abilities to reflect on the role of artist in the society and to be engaged critically toward the development of the society by specific means of contemporary art practices.
The other important aspect is educating young generation of artists to reflect on the aspects of the historic, social, politic and cultural contexts of post-socialist and post-communist societies in their art works which would give them the ability to adapt to the constant change of the cultural landscape.
Preliminary list of involved participants:
Project partners:
Art&Cultural Studies Laboratory/Armenia
GeoAIR/Georgia
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Brandenburg/Germany
SPACES/Slovak Republic
Art Today Association Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Invited artists:
Georgia – Lado Darakvelidze, Sofia Tabatadze,
Armenia –Arman Grigorean, Tigran Hachatrean
Bulgaria – Ivan Mudov, Pravdoliub Ivanov
Slovachia – Anetta Mona Chisa&Lucia Tkaciova
Germany – Tilmann Meyer-Faje, Sussane Kriemann
Local artists:
Moldova – Valeria Barbas, Vladimir Us, Tatiana Fiodorova, Maxim Kuzmenko, Ghenadie Popescu, Dumitru Oboroc, Veacelsav Druta,
Teoreticians/Art Historians:
Ruben Arevshatyan/Armenia, Nini Palavandishvili/Georgia, Ovidiu Tichindeleanu/Moldova
