Thinking Europe: Conference Programme

posted by: Barbara Steiner

January 28, 2012, Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig 1:00 p.m. Insert 1: Michaël Aerts: Permanent-Mobile-Action (Performance) 2:30 p.m. Panel: Being-in-Common – What Can a Community Be Nowadays? The very notion of community has procured various meanings and manifestations over the course of recent centuries. Nowadays society is getting more and more fragmented so what are the conditions from which we can speak about community today? What constitutes a community and what does being part of a community mean? This panel seeks to address what a community can be today if it is reduced neither to a collection of separate individuals or states nor to a communal substance. How can we still speak of a 'we' or of a plurality, without transforming this 'we' into a substantial and exclusive identity? Rather than being defined by homogeneity and unity, can we understand community through difference, multiplicity and dissolution? Is it possible that community is in fact the shared experience of alterity that defines our very being-in-common? Guest: Olga Shparaga (Minsk), associated professor at the European Humanities University in Vilnius, co-editor of the Internet Journal Novaja Europa and editor of the book European Perspective of Belarus: Intellectual Models (EHU 2007) Participants: Peio Aguirre (Donostia-San Sebastián), Kit Hammonds (London), Jarosław Lubiak (Łódź), Filip Luyckx (Brussels), Lena Prents (Minsk) Moderator: Vanessa Boni (London) 4:00 p.m. Insert 2: Slavs & Tatars: Reverse Joy 5:30 p.m. Panel: Thinking about Europe – Does Art Matter? Debating on Europe's lack of identity, its financial crisis and its future perspectives, culture has become an increasingly important factor. It is seen to be a provider of values, the social adhesive of a community that is multi-voiced and fragmented. Talking about the role of art seems to be more complicated. Certainly, it can neither solve the kinds of problems addressed by other disciplines be it politics or economy, nor compensate for social dysfunctions. But does this mean on the contrary that art is dysfunctional itself? Can it have any impact on politics and economy? The panel seeks to discuss the various possibilities of art within debates about Europe and of an art project about Europe, its critical and utopian potential but also its own limits and limitations. Guest: Dejan Grba (Belgrade), artist and assistant professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts Belgrade Participants: Miško Šuvaković (Novi Sad), Joanna Sokołowska (Łódź), Felix Vogel (Berlin), Jun Yang (Taipei) Moderator: Barbara Steiner (Leipzig)