What About the Margins? /3./ Kvet Nguyen: Leftover bodies

WHAT ABOUT THE MARGINS?
Seminar
19 June, 2024
Lectures:
➞ Andreja Mesarič: Claiming a European identity from the margins: Race in Slovene nation-building
➞ anna řičář libánská: Representation of Native Americans in the Czechoslovak Magazine "Mladý svět" (Young World) between 1959 - 1989
➞ Kvet Nguyen: Leftover bodies
Screnning of Denis Kozerawski & Peter Kašpar's short film Kambium1942
Discussion: Andreja Mesarič, anna řičář libánská, Kvet Nguyen and Denis Kozerawski (without videodocumentation)
Moderated by curator Iva Kovač
Kvet Nguyen (1995, Slovakia) graduated in 2021 from the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. She won the Tatra Banka Foundation 2021 Award in the Young Artist cat- egory. She actively exhibits in Europe (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, France, Serbia, the Netherlands) as well as other continents (Canada, Vietnam). In her works she deals with the topics of migration, diaspora and their identities, and tries to open discussions about them in ordinary conversations and other platforms as well.
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East Central Europe (ECE) and South East Europe (SEE), historically subordinated to different empires until the beginning of the 20th century, have been affected by the history of colonialism (albeit in the form of economic exploitation rather than participating in political partitioning) and coloniality (as a mindset created by the social relations promoted through the history of colonialism). As a result, they have been part of the global relations created through this history. Since the end of state socialism and the accession of many of these states to the EU (that is, those in the process of pre-accession agreements), the dominant political positions in most of these states are aligned with the EU or the West.
The seminar introduced academic and artistic research to present different cases in the long history of othering in/of these European peripheries. Andreja Mesarič and anna ričář libánská focused on historical cases that helped solidify racist stereotypes in European peripheries. By focusing on her research on the Slovene catholic mission in Sudan in the 19th century, anthropologist Andreja Mesarič disclosed early cases of the construction of whiteness in Slovenia. Moving closer to contemporaneity, anna ričář libánská, a researcher in the field of Ibero-American Studies, looked at the creation of the image of the Native Americans in the Czech (popular) culture and their representations in Czech imagination between 1948 and 1989. Kvet Nguyen, artist exhibiting in the Looking-A-Way exhibition, presented artistic research focused on the visual representation of the Vietnamese community in Slovakia through official records and the private archives of the community members, thereby revealing some differences in representation during state socialism and after. The short film Kambium1942, directed by artist Denis Kozerawski, reveals historical connections with the global colonial order through the exploitation of raw materials from Slovakia that were used in the colonial efforts while focusing on persisting discrimination of the Roma community in the region to this day.
sk.tranzit.org
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The seminar took place in the framework of the exhibition LOOKING A - WAY: OTHERING IN/OF THE (SEMI)PERIPHERY, which was prepared in collaboration with the City of Women Association.
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ERSTE Foundation is main partner of tranzit. // Supported using public funding by the Slovak Arts Council. // Media partners: Artalk.info, Flash Art CZ & SK, Kapitál, GoOut.net