The Glossary of Common Knowledge is a five-year research project run by Moderna galerija (MG+MSUM) within the framework of the broader European project “Uses of Art - the Legacy of 1848 and 1989” by the European confederation L'Internationale.

The third seminar of the project is entitled “Glossary of Common Knowledge: Geopolitics”. It will be conducted in English and held on 17 and 18 September 2015 in the conference room of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova.  

The curators of the Glossary of Common Knowledge project are Zdenka Badovinac and Bojana Piškur (MG+MSUM) and Jesús Carrillo.

The goal of the project is twofold: to compile a glossary of art terminology that differs substantially from what is found in the existing literature on art, and to do so in collaboration with institutions and individuals (called narrators) from Europe and other parts of the world who propose terms relating to their own practices and contexts, and subsequently compare them. These narrators are involved in the process of editing the glossary throughout the project, producing new knowledge through comparisons. This makes the Glossary of Common Knowledge an alternative to comparable projects that conform to the dominant epistemological models. The terms are discussed and defined at seminars dealing with five referential fields (historicizing, subjectivization, geopolitics, other institutionality, the commons), and then compared to produce new ones through associative connections. At the seminars, curators work with narrators from the institutions of the confederation L'Internationale and with narrators from other parts of the world. The Glossary is accessible already in its intermediate stages at the Glossary of Common Knowledge website and at the Moderna galerija website. In 2017, the Glossary of Common Knowledge will be published in book form.

At the third seminar, thirteen internationally renowned theorists, curators, and activists will present thirteen terms associated with geopolitics. Even if the prefix geo- seems too simplistic today for comprehending the contemporary locus of politics, the geographies of power urgently need to be readdressed in a time in which frontiers are controlled, and territorial dispossession and exploitation intensify, with increasing violence. The crisis of hegemonic views of globalization and the quick dissemination of new vocabularies of antagonism and resistance coming from local struggles are writing a new scenario for “geo”-politics.

The seminar is going to broach the questions of what impact artists and the art system have on the global economic and political situation and vice versa, and how to critically position oneself towards the subordination of the art system to ideological, epistemological and capital positions of power, while emphasizing that art and ideas of different cultural spaces are not distributed equally in different parts of the world. 

NARRATORS FOR THE GEOPOLITICS REFERENTIAL FIELD
Curators of the Glossary of Common Knowledge
Zdenka Badovinac (MG+MSUM, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Bojana Piškur (MG+MSUM, Ljubljana, Slovenia)

L'Internationale Narrators
Anders Krueger (M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium)
Marianna Hovhannisyan (SALT Research, Istanbul, Turkey)
Nick Aickens (Vanabbe Museum, Holland)
Chema Gonzales (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain)

Narrators from the global family
Boris Buden (Croatia/Germany)
Galit Eliat (Israel)
Manray Hsu (Taiwan/Germany)
Anthony Gardner (Australia/UK)
Tzortzis Rallis (Greece/UK)
Mabel Tapia (Spain)
Darij Zadnikar (Slovenia)

Glossary of Common Knowledge is a part of a five year programme The Uses of Art – Legacy of 1848 and 1989 led by L'Internationale confederation of museums. Supported by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Culture Programme of the European Union.