tranzit office, Dittrichova 13, Prague 2
1st July 2019
7.00pm

The relationship between private funding bodies and post-colonial “developing economies” is seen vividly in the nexus of independent arts, cultural production, and trans-national non-governmental funding. In tracing the history and patterns of the Open Society Foundation in both the Middle East and the former Eastern Block, she will conduct a comparative survey into the effects of the soft power of funding over the past forty years, in order to carve out different alternative spaces for mutual growth and artistic production in the future. How can we liberate the current ecosystems of independent arts from their historically loaded underpinnings? Can we deconstruct entrenched notions of “civil society” to imagine a plurality of autonomous cultural economies?

Mariam Elnozahy is a curator, archivist, and writer based in Cairo at the Townhouse Gallery. She focuses primarily on critical, community-based work and has curated exhibitions in Jeddah and London in addition to Cairo. Her writings have been published in Hyperallergic and MadaMasr. Most recently, she was on residency with the Warsaw Biennale and U-Jazdowski CCA.

http://www.thetownhousegallery.com
https://hyperallergic.com/484702/a-father-and-son-propose-better-worlds-through-cyborgs-and-infrastructure-projects/

Volodymyr Kuznetsov: Practices in Common Spaces
12.6. 2019, 7 p.m., tranzit office

Volodymyr Kuznetsov, an Ukrainian artist living in Kiev, will talk about a type of his practice that is embedded in everyday social interactions, experiences, habits. Initially, Volodymyr used drawing, painting, murals, video, embroidery and texts in order to reflect on social practices but also to rethink and discuss new forms and ways of life. Later, he participated in people’s meetings and initiatives concerned with Maidan and post-Maidan political situation, with the war in Eastern Ukraine or with Ukrainian war prisoners in Russia. His aim was to think collectively about such new forms of coexistence and consensus-based decision-making processes. He is interested in the ways in which artistic practice has use outside of the walls of art institutions, in other domains of human activities. Then what we call artistic practice is not really “art” but a tool to help, to support, to maintain society. In Ukraine, he is known “as the artist who had his work censored in Mystetsky Arsenal museum complex in Kyiv in 2015” which resulted in a long series of court hearings. Based on his experience, he and the tranzit team would like to discuss questions of institutional critique and the ethics of collaboration with institutions with problematic background.

The event will be held in English
free entry

Display Gallery, Dittrichova 9, Prague 2
6.30pm Performance - Burning to the End
7.00pm Artist Sharing of Research Paper

You are invited to join Vietnamese Artist Moi Tran to discuss the position of the Vietnamese Diaspora in the Czech Republic and discuss the journey of Vietnamese migrants to Eastern European countries. This open room talk will offer a space to collectively unpack thoughts around Diaspora and ‘appearance zones’ in countries of settlement. The complex relationship between communities of settlement and the Vietnamese Diaspora presents an individual and collective pressure between two opposing points - National and Global, Native and Foreign, First and Second generation, Tradition and Modernity. Can we deconstruct the conceptual and geographical borders to challenge the traditional definitions of Diaspora? For this event there is a focus on the Vietnamese community who have settled in Prague. We invite people from both communities to join in this conversation.

Moi Tran, Born in Vietnam with Chinese Heritage.
A refugee of the Vietnam War, her work examines the effects of Dis/placement and narratives in Diaspora. In an ever-evolving negotiation she calls this process the ‘Eternal detour of identity’. An Artist, Researcher and Designer based in the UK exploring intersections between Contemporary Art and Performance. Tran constructs geo-political intimacy as sites of knowledge production and uses improvisation and duration to investigate alternative ideas of protest. Her work explores relationships within the domain of immediate intimacy and experiences of visibility in spaces of appearance. Tran composes ‘narrative scenarios’ to explore acts that govern our economy of presence to discuss the social geography of individual and relational identity.

The event will be in English
Free entry

About Moi Tran

Volodymyr Kuznetsov (Ukraine)
Tuan Mami (Vietnam)
Anna Kravets (Visual Culture Research Center) (Ukraine)
Otty Widasari & Hafiz Rancajale (Forum Lenteng) (Indonesia)