ART AT WORK
Assembly debate and workshops
Friday, 23 September 2022
Museum of Contemporary Art MetelkovA
Assembly debate: 11:00–12:30
Workshops: 13:30–15:00
Assembly debate: Art at Work
moderated by Biljana Tanurovska – Kjulavkovski
11:00–12:30
Regions of former Yugoslavia have a shared history, and they also share a similar experience of more or less brutal integration into the Western capitalist market. The cultural models in most of these countries are a complex conglomerate of vestiges of self-managed socialist structures of public institutions and freelance cultural workers combined with neoliberal project-based work and precarization that does not provide for a decent living.
This has not affected everyone to the same extent, because experience in specific jobs and living circumstances further add to oppression. Individual examples are thus but a symptom of a deeper problem of a non-functioning system in which the most socially vulnerable can no longer survive and where cultural activity is becoming increasingly influenced by class.
What can cultural institutions in the non-governmental and public sectors do to improve the situation? How can workers in public institutions or non-governmental organizations, the self-employed and those who work without proper contractual relationships organize themselves? And first and foremost, what is the role of politics in the systematic improvement of working conditions in the arts?
The assembly will open a debate with individuals and collectives from Slovenia and former Yugoslavia who have been actively involved in art and politics for years. The problem is here, with us, and if we want artists and cultural workers to work in proper conditions we are also obliged to face up to difficult questions.
Workshop 1: Advocacy policies and changes to the cultural model
moderated by Miha Zadnikar
13:30–15:00
In a situation of individualization of post-Fordist work patterns, where workers have no job positions or immediate superiors and when precariousness pervades not only our working conditions, but also our lives and relationships, we need to rethink the possibilities of labor organizing in the cultural sector. So what shape does the struggle for labor rights take in the 21st century and what can we learn from one another?
Workshop 2: Organization of cultural workers
moderated by Vida Knežević
13:30–15:00
The power discourse pushes us to understand the inability to survive in culture through a field of individual failures, when in fact it is clear that this is a systemic problem that requires a systemic, not an individualized solution. What are examples of good practice in labor rights protection in culture in the territory of former Yugoslavia, which concrete changes to the cultural model are required today and how can they be achieved?
To attend the debate, please register at: izobrazevanje@mg-lj.si.
Please specify also which workshop you wish to participate in. The number of participants is limited, so don’t wait too long to sign up.
