Venue: Student square no 5 Kolarac Josic Pancic Hall
Date: November 9th 2022 18:00
Prefigurative Practices – OFF-Biennale Budapest at documenta fifteen
Prefigurative practices can be defined as attempts to enact, in the present, utopian or alternative social relations and institutional models, aspired to in the future. The modus operandi of OFF-Biennale Budapest—a grassroots, independent arts initiative, since 2013—has also been rooted in such practices: by acting as if it were an art institution organizing large-scale, international art events, it “performs” and “prefigures” an institution. During this process of “self-instituting”, OFF flexibly reflects on and recreates itself according to the challenges occurring in its local context of “illiberal democracy”. And while in terms of infrastructure, funding, and organization OFF reinvents itself from edition to edition, its curatorial practice is ongoing, with a strong focus on social ideas that experiment with forms of coexistence to build a society of mutual trust, generosity, responsibility, and care. Based on this (structural and curatorial) practice, OFF was invited to present its “cosmology” in the framework of documenta fifteen. As a member of the so-called “lumbung interlokal”—consisting of 14 different but like-minded organizations and initiatives from all around the world—OFF presented two exhibition projects and a publication that are not only representative of its activities, but are also in line with the general concept of documenta fifteen, the “lumbung”.
documenta fifteen: OFF-Biennale Budapest, Sead Kazanxhiu, The Nest, 2012–2022, installation view, Fridericianum (façade), Kassel, May 11, 2022, photo: Nicolas Wefers
About Speaker:
Katalin Székely holds an MA in Art History and German Literature from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) Budapest, and was a curator at Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art between 2008 and 2013. She is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Program in Film, Media and Contemporary Culture at Eötvös Loránd University. Her field of research includes new media practices in the Neo-Avant-Garde in Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe, and institutional critique in the CEE region from the early 1960s to the present. Since 2014, Katalin Székely has been a member of the curatorial team of OFF-Biennale Budapest, the largest independent, grassroots arts initiative in Hungary. Since November 2015, as Creative Program Officer at Blinken OSA, she has curated and coordinated exhibitions and other public programs.
The event is free and open to the public.
The WCSCD educational program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric.
Project Partners:
We thank following partners for supporting selected participants for 2022 program:
Romanian Cultural Institute. Artcom platform , Kadist Foundation, William Demant Foundation
For more information about the program, please refer to www.old.wcscd.com
Project contacts: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com
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