Suzana Milevska // The Clusivity of ‘We’ // May 2025 // MSU Zagreb скачать в хорошем качестве

Suzana Milevska // The Clusivity of ‘We’ // May 2025 // MSU Zagreb

The first international conference under the research project Identity Crisis Network invited scholars, curators, artists, and other individuals and collectives to join in a conversation that seeks to challenge established notions of identity and subjectivity in contemporary art and culture. ――――――― The Clusivity of ‘We’: In solidarity with the different and the (im)possibility of the first person plural : lecture by Suzana Milevska Ever since the World Romani Congress took place in 1971 in Orpington, near London, representatives of different Romani groups agreed on the use of the umbrella term ‘Roma’ as a replacement for the long-lived derogatory and racist terms, intending to raise awareness about the discrimination towards Roma. However, Roma are still some of the most underrepresented and disenfranchised subjects who are excluded from the cultural processes and institutions. In the autotheoretical lecture-performance, I want to present my cross-disciplinary research and curatorial practice, which I have dedicated to various projects by Roma artists. I will ponder different strategies of Roma artists who act as bearing witness to their communities and address the questions of the sociopolitical and economic status of Roma, their representations, identity, and transindividuality, I will extrapolate my thesis and arguments from a few case studies of my curatorial practice (Call the Witness, Roma Protocols, To One’s Name, etc.). One of the most challenging aspects in these projects was developing a research methodology, vocabulary, and solidarity strategy that aimed to enable the allies of other ethnic backgrounds to overcome the societal hierarchies based on embedded systemic racism. For example, I want to highlight the long-term implications of using the problematic term ‘Roma Art’ that often resonates with stereotypical and essentialist imagery. ――――――― Dr. Suzana Milevska is a theorist and independent curator based in Skopje, North Macedonia. In her projects, she employs postcolonial critique, feminism, ecofeminism, and the institutional critique and representational regimes of hegemonic power. At the same time, she addresses their bearing on arts and visual culture. She focuses on community-based projects in solidarity with marginalized and disenfranchised communities. From 2016 to 2019, she was a Principal Investigator of the Horizon 2020 project Transmitting of Contentious Cultural Heritages through the Arts: From Intervention to Co-Production (TRACES). She curated the project’s concluding exhibition, Contentious Objects/Ashamed Subjects, at the Polytechnic University in Milan. Milevska was appointed the first Endowed Professor for Central and South Eastern European Art Histories at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2013 - 2015). Milevska holds a Ph.D. in visual cultures from Goldsmiths College in London and in 2004 was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at Library of Congress in Washington D.C. She curated numerous international exhibitions such as The Renaming Machine (2008-2011), Roma Protocol (Austrian Parliament, Vienna, 2011), Call the Witness (BAK, Utrecht, 2011) and she initiated the project Call the Witness – the Roma Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. In 2012, Milevska won the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory. Milevska published the books Gender Difference in the Balkans, 2010; The Renaming Machine: The Book, 2010; On Productive Shame, Reconciliation, and Agency, 2016; and Participatory Art: A Paradigm Shift from Objects to Subjects, 2024. In 2012, she won the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory. ――――――― The event was part of the international cultural programme of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2025, organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. https://identitycrisisnetwork.com/   / icn__________