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Conference March 2021

European Culture of Resistance against Fascisms

Foundation Between Bridges

Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
20.3.2021, online 9:00-18:00 CET
Registration: Until March 18, 2021

            The Europe we inhabit today developed as a project in resistance to its past fascisms. But are fascisms only found in the past? This day-long workshop and exchange meeting explores resistance against fascisms as a performative, artistic, cultural, digital and educational instrument of realizing (European) community. Renown artists, curators, scientists, and education experts will discuss openly and co-creatively artistic and communal possibilities of fighting fascist ideas with youth and participants of cultural institutions from Europe, Israel and the U.S. The workshops assemble excellent artistic, curatorial and educational practices with divergent perspectives on the topic - from remembrance cultures to art to activism - to develop new lines and spheres of cooperation.

            Why a culture of resistance? Culture is the arts and more than arts; culture is the way we do things, see things, hope for and understand things, the way we stay healthy, partaking and connected. Todays' Europe itself is a project in resistance to the wars and atrocities of the 20th century. This workshop and exchange meeting creates a platform and basis for a cooperation across cultural, historical, and educational institutions and individuals to address the challenges of the present, specifically: how to find a new culture of socio-political and artistic expression of resistance against fascisms, while coming together on a European level?

            After a short welcome and introduction, participants split into one of the four thematic workshops: Arts of Resistance, Communities of Resistance, Digital Resistance, Education of Resistance. (Please subscribe until March 18 via the links below.) Before the lunch break, young people from Austria, Croatia, Germany and Italy will speak about their artistic and research process in the pilot project ART WORKS! European Culture of Resistance and Liberation. Concluding the day, Jonathan Horowitz and Wolfgang Tillmans wil talk about their artistic and activist work..

Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

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What is Fascism? In this video, historian Ursula Prutsch explains the historical roots of European fascisms and their migrations.


FASCISM Ursula Prutsch, Austrian historian and Professor of US and Latin American History, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

︎    Fascism, Ursula Prutsch, 2021 

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Keynote with Q&A:

We fight to build a free world! In his keynote lecture, Jonathan Horowitz will talk about the possibilities art offers to counter fascist thought, racism and anti-Semitism. This event will bestreamed on this page and via HKW Facebook.

Jonathan Horowitz, artist, NY
Chair: Wolfgang Tillmans, artist, Foundation Between Bridges




— Arts of Resistance (booked out)

This workshop investigates the possibilities of artistic and curatorial practice to countering fascist thought.

Barbara Staudinger, director, Jewish Museum Augsburg
Sebastian Cichocki, chief curator and head of research, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw
               


— Communities of Resistance (booked out)

Starting from Milica Tomic's practice of "investigative memorialisation," the workshop will centre on the soil's archival capabilities, as soil does not only hold memory of our past but also counter-memory.

Milica Tomic, artist, head of Institute of Contemporary Art, TU Graz
Galia Bar-Or, senior lecturer and curator, Jerusalem

               



— Digital Resistance (booked out)

This workshop introduces you to the artistic possibilities of gaming culture while exposing the culture's problems with antisemitism, racism and sexism.

Total Refusal: Digital Disarmament Movement, artists collective, Graz – Vienna
Keinen Pixel den Faschisten!, digital activist network from Germany, Austria and Swiss
               

— Education of Resistance (booked out)

Headed by a lecture on the Human Rights Education Compass, this workshop introduces you to award-winning examples of anti-fascist education.

Jean-Philippe Restoueix, Human Rights educator, Council of Europe
Roman Fröhlich, political scientist, head of education at Foundation wannseeFORUM Berlin with Katja Pratschke, artist and educator
Scott Solder, co-founder, The Active Bystander Training Company

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European Culture of Resistance against Facisms is made possible by the generous support:










Navigating Dizziness Together FWF-PEEK AR 598

Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin



8:45 Check-In 
9:00 (sharp)
Welcome Wolfgang Tillmans, artist and founder of Foundation Between Bridges, and Daniel Neugebauer, head of education at HKW Berlin. Introduction to the workshops by Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond, HASENHERZ and University of Applied Arts, Vienna.

9:30
Start of the 4 workshops

11:00 Break
11:30
Presentation and discussion of the pilot project ART WORKS! by the 4 youth groups. Chair: Anna Kim

12:30 Break

Stream ART WORKS! (looped) 

13:30 Continuation of Workshops

16:00 Break
17:00
Live Stream
Conversation with Jonathan Horowitz and Wolfgang Tillmans, around Jonathan Horowitz’ exhibition We fight to build a free world! (mod: Anderwald + Grond)

18:00 Good Bye

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Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond (AT) work as an artist and artistic research collective. Their work has been exhibited internationally, e.g., at Whitechapel Gallery, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris, MAK Vienna, Himalayas Art Museum, Shanghai, or Tate Modern, London. They have curated screening programs and exhibitions at Kunsthaus Graz, U-jazdowski Castle, CCA Warsaw, mumok Viennaor CCA Tel Aviv. Their long-term, cross-disciplinary artistic research projects include Dizziness-A Resource (2014-2017), and currently Navigating Dizziness Together (2020-2023), University for Applied Arts Vienna, funded by the Austrian Science Funds; and The Construction Site of Remembrance, in connection to the renewal of the Austrian Exhibition at Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland (2018-2021) is commissioned by the Austrian National Funds.

Galia Bar Or (ISR) is a senior academic lecturer and curator. Until 2016 she was director and chief curator of the Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod. She has been the curator of the Israeli Pavilion at the International Art Biennales of Venice (2010), Sao Paulo (1996), and Istanbul (1992). Her curatorial projects, events, and symposia include: Documenta at Kassel and Athens (2017), HKW House of World Cultures, Berlin; Bochum Museum of Art (2015), Bauhaus Dessau (2011), Milan Cathedral (2011), Felix Nussbaum Museum, Osnabruck (2005), Otto Dix Museum, Gera (2004), Beaux-Arts Paris, Lyon (2002), Saitma Museum, Tokyo, and the Kamakura Museum of Art, Japan (2000).

Sebastian Cichocki (PL) is chief curator and head of research at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. In his curatorial and publishing projects, he refers to the history of ecological and antifascist movements. Selected curated and co-curated exhibitions: Never Again Art against War and Fascism in the 20th and 21st centuries, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (2019), Yael Bartana’s ... and Europe will be Stunned, Polish Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition, Venice (2011, with G.Eilat)

Roman Fröhlich (GER), Dr. rer. pol., is the manager of the civic education department of the wannseeFORUM Foundation. He studied political science and sociology in Freiburg and Vienna and received his PhD at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science of the FU Berlin. From 2007 to 2015, he worked on his dissertation on forced labour in National Socialism and as a freelancer in non-formal youth education. His work and research focus on non-formal and political-historical youth education and forced labour under National Socialism.

Jonathan Horowitz (US) is a New York-based artist working in video, sculpture, sound installation, and photography. In 2020, Horowitz curated the exhibit We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz for The Jewish Museum, NY. Bringing together works by over 70 artists, including Horowitz’s own work, “the exhibition looks at how artists have historically responded to the rise of authoritarianism and xenophobia as well as racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry. The exhibition also addresses issues surrounding immigration, assimilation, and cultural identity.”

Keinen Pixel den Faschisten! (GER) is an initiative of websites, media professionals, research collectives and developer studios from computer game culture who want to work for an inclusive climate in their communities through anti-fascist work. Right-wing groups use and influence computer games as a communication platform. The transition from discriminatory comments and hate speech to radicalisation in the right-wing scene is fluid. Keinen Pixel den Faschisten! wants to counterbalance this toxic part of the computer game scene.

Anna Kim (AT) is a novelist and essayist who lives in Munich and Vienna. She has written extensively about the causes and consequences of political violence, including in her most recent novel, Die große Heimkehr (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2017) /The Great Homecoming (Granta, 2020). Set after the Second World War in a newly-divided Korea, The Great Homecoming explores the rise of fascism in both North and South Korea. She has also written about the aftermath of the war in Yugoslavia in Die gefrorene Zeit(Literaturverlag Droschl, 2008) /Frozen Time (Ariadne Press, 2010).

Katja Pratschke’s (GER) artistic practice includes work with film, photography and installation, and the curation of exhibitions, symposia, film series and publications. Her works are exhibited internationally (currently: Ludwig Museum Budapest: Time Machine) and projected at festivals (Tent Biennale Kolkatta 2020), cinematheques and museums (currently: Casa do Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira/Museum Serralves, Porto). As a member of the Concrete Narrative Society e.V, she explores the contemporary complexity of cinematographic processes outside the cinema screen.

Jean Philippe Restoueix (FR) is administrator within the Council of Europe, firstly in the Youth department and since 2007 within the Education department. He is responsible for the Council of Europe programme on “Passing on the Remembrance of the Holocaust and prevention of crimes against humanity: a cross-cutting approach”.

Scott Solder (UK) is one of the founders and director of The Active Bystander Training Company. Scott delivers training and appears at conferences and events demonstrating psychological and assertiveness techniques which are highly effective in challenging unacceptable behaviours. Scott is a former editor at BBC News and Current Affairs and a specialist in language, influence and persuasion. His book, ‘You Need This Book to Get What You Want’ (published by Simon & Schuster), is a globally published and widely translated guide to improving your powers of persuasion.

Barbara Staudinger (AT) is director of the Jewish Museum Augsburg and part of the curatorial team of the renewal of the Austrian Exhibition at Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her recent exhibitions include The City Without (Jews, Muslims, Refugees), Schalom Sisters*!. Further exhibitions at Volkskundemuseum Vienna, Jewish Museum Vienna, Wien Museum, Welt Museum Vienna focusing on Jewish history and cultural history and interventions on the topic of Jewish history and migration history.

Wolfgang Tillmans (GER) is an artist and photographer who lives and works in Berlin and London. Since the early 1990s Tillmans has been challenging the potentiality of making pictures. His work has epitomized a new kind of subjectivity in photography, pairing intimacy and playfulness with social critique and the persistent questioning of existing values and hierarchies. In 2017 he established Between Bridges, a foundation for the advancement of democracy, international understanding, the arts, and LGBT rights.

Milica Tomić (born in SFR Yugoslavia) explores different genres and methods of artistic practice that centres on investigating, unearthing and bringing to public debate issues related to political violence, economic underpinnings and social amnesia. She participated in major international exhibitions such as 24th Sao Paulo Biennale (1998), 49th/50th Venice Biennale (2001/2003); Manufacturing Today/Trondheim Biennale (2010); 6th International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Gyumri, Armenia (2008); 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011), Odessa Biennial (2013), After Year Zero / Forensis, HKW Berlin, Germany C2013/2014); The School of Kyiv - The Biennial (2015); Body Luggage, Kunsthaus Graz (2017), Exhibiting at the Trowel Edge, steirischer herbst, (2018); On  Love Afterwards, photo installation/ … of bread, wine, cars, security and peace, Kunsthalle Vienna / performance, Europa Machine, Burgtheater, Vienna (2020), Bigger than Myself. Heroic voices, MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome, (2021) etc.

Total Refusal - Digital Disarmament Movement (AT) is a collective comprising Austrian artists Leonhard Müllner, Robin Klengel, Michael Stumpf, Adrian Jonas Haim, Susanna Flock and Jona Kleinlein, funded in 2018, and promoting a subversive pacifist approach to violent video games. The collective operates as an “ideological antidote, unveiling the regressive characteristics of contemporary gaming media and reopening them as playgrounds for practising creative disobedience and dissent.”