As you go . . .
the roads under your feet,
towards a new future
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journal
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The Editorial
January, 2022
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sarah bushra
I began my editorial role reading Teodora Jeremic’s Notes on Breathing, thinking at length about the simple act of breathing. Jeremic instrumentalizes air, and our relation to air, to lightly reveal the myth of the individual. Departing from a muffled underwater dream, we read Jeremic’s voice rising in determined, imaginative, and hopeful intonation welcoming the genesis of a collective body, as an afterglow of the luminous optimism in protests.
Writing from a country stifled in pain, I’m reflecting on the kind of hope a collective mobilization impregnates. Elaine Scarry writes about the unsharability of physical pain, saying: “physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state of anterior to language,…” What Scarry refers to as the sounds and cries that precede linguistic structures, are today mirrored as incessant ringing of hollowed words parroted across social media and public platforms. For the 15 months civil war in Ethiopia, ‘care’, ‘reconciliation’, and ‘empathy’ have been in slow erosion of value and meaning. At the moment, what eludes Ethiopians the most is a way out of the current crisis, a way to heal deep rooted ailment. Foresight does not arrive unbidden, but follows a committed exercise in empathy. Bell Hooks reminds us of Fromms definition of love as ” the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” There is work in love, empathy, and care.
At the beginning of the New Year, citizens of Khazakistan took to the streets to protest the hike in fuel prices, a last straw in a series of severe consequences from decades-long corrupt governance. What began as peaceful demonstration quickly escalated into violence, exasperated by government crackdowns on protestors. Despite the dissolution of humanitarian and social values on all fronts, some continue to courageously stand for justice. In an imitation of this resilient praxis from afar, we stand in solidarity with partners and peers from Khazakistan.
The last text I read before withdrawing from the journal was Sinkneh Eshetu’s futuristic inquiry: “virtually driving back in time?”. Here the author describes the meeting of two worlds, the dissonance and marvels in confronting divergences among communities. This text reminds us meeting differences with intrigue rather than threat is a corner stone for critical thinking.
Coming back to the journal in January after a brief hiatus, I carry with me the image of water. Deciding to ride the waves, to be close to water, to find the ease to cleanse and to always be able to imagine a rebirth – countless times – now and again.
The journal now opens to Ash Moniz’s jumping ship, a poetic blues in text, contemplating the Suez Canal blockage in March 2021. In what reads like a cubist style, Moniz presents parts of his research in a prism of vantage points, firmly grasping the abstractions in time and stillness.
With this note, we invite you to read and reread the following regenerative entries in As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future. Each encounter unfurls a new thread and provokes necessary conversation central to localities of our partner cells: Zdenka Badovinac, Rockbund Art Museum, Times Museum, Artcom platform, Robel Temesgen, Sinkneh Eshetu, Public Library in Bor.
Contact: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com
Chief Editor: Biljana Ciric
Editorial Board: Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai, China), Times Museum (Guangzhou, China), National Library in Bor (Serbia), Addis Ababa University (Etiophia), Artcom (Astana, Kazakhstan), and WCSCD (Belgrade, Serbia)
Recent Contributions
Stories from the Room – Conversation
A disturbing Chinese dream: scattered thoughts on the cultures of involution and art institution in China
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zian chen
Shore Seeing Stillness
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ash moniz
Non-Alignment Summit Anniversary a difficulty to re-member
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dunja karanović & jovan mladenović
SEEING THE INVISIBLE
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alexey ulko
THE CULTURAL INTERWEAVING OF CHINA AND THE BALKANS: A TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF ARTISTIC EXCHANGES UNDER THE BRI
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marija glavaš
NETWORKING THE PERIPHERIES: LOOKING EAST FROM THE EAST
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jelica jovanović
Virtually Driving Back in Time?
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sinkneh eshetu
Notes on respiration
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teodora jeremić
Untitled
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naol befkadu
The Election Conundrum: Ethiopia’s Determination to hold the 6th National Election and its Ramifications
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naol befkadu
Life ‘After’ the Pandemic: Ethiopia’s Response to COVID-19’s Paradoxical Effect
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naol befkadu
Astrobus Ethiopia 2021
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astrobus
THE CULTURAL INTERWEAVING OF CHINA AND THE BALKANS
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marija glavaš
History and stories from Lake Balkhash
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aigerim kapar
THE DANGER OF AMBITION AND NEGLECT
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sinkneh eshetu, aziza abdulfetah busser & berhanu
Behind Ethiopia’s Civil War: From Guerrilla to Secessionist
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berhanu
“Bor is burning”: the political economy of IT in the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia
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robert bobnič and kaja kraner
Infrastructuring the Region: Fieldnotes of an Ongoing Research
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jelica jovanović
Seeing the Invisible: Documenting and Interpreting China’s Cultural Presence in Uzbekistan (Part 2)
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alexey ulko
Partner Cells in Co-Immunity
On Bor’s Industrial Heritage
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dragan stojmenovic
Seeing the Invisible: Documenting and Interpreting China’s Cultural Presence in Uzbekistan (Part 1)
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alexey ulko
On Not Hearing the Gunfire
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su wei
Treading a line
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sarah bushra
The stories behind the lockdown: Kazakhstan against Corona
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anvar musrepov
Bicycle Uprising Against Authoritarianism
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tjaša pureber
Belgrade Calling 2
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katarina kostandinović
Bor
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hu yun
Beating Around the Bush: Some Reflections on the Crisis of “Imported Cases” of Africans in Guangzhou
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berhanu
Bishkek – Addis Ababa, notes from the journey through space and time
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gulnara kasmalieva and muratbek djumaliev
Biljana Ciric in conversation
with Robel Temesgen
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robel temesgen
Mask making and coffee drinking in Addis
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sarah bushra
Jack
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ocean wavz
Belgrade Calling
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katarina kostandinović
Boarding & Europe
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siniša ilić
School-In-Isolation
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bermet borubaeva
Artists as Gardeners
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gulnara kasmalieva and muratbek djumaliev
Corena* Musings
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sarah bushra
What happens after the contactless art world?
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nikita yingqian cai
The Sustainable
Museum
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zdenka badovinac