Our first project together. Project that we did as CSEEAH group, alongside with Brishty Alam and Sergio Valenzuela-Valdes. It took place at Michaela Stock Galerie on the 25th of May, 2015
Public Release:
CSEEAH. Discontinuing Dialogues: Open Call
Michaela Stock Gallery – Schleifmühlgasse 18, 1040 Vienna
25th May 2015 at 7 pm
CSEEAH kindly invites you to the presentation of their first collaborative exhibition – the participatory performance titled “Discontinuing Dialogues: Open Call”. This performance is a part of Appropriation – Performance – Part 1 Festival that will take place at the Michaela Stock Gallery on Monday, May 25th 2015 at 7 pm.
Consider how many times you have tried to apply for something – a job, a competition, an internship, a grant, a visa, etc. Many people have had the experience of applying for something and being rejected. The application process is often exhaustingly long; it demands extensive documentation and answers to unreasonable questions. The intense bureaucratisation and the exclusiveness of art institutions, as well as other institutions, is nevertheless just a part of the larger issue of the corporatisation of higher education. CSEEAH is an independent collective that gets its force from an interesting mix of different cultural and professional backgrounds.
Thanks to our amazing pro bono programmer Velimir Iveljić we were able to develop a participatory platform in a form of an online application. By appropriating the concept of an application form and application process we are trying to purposely over identify with an imaginary institution in order to criticise it.
The visitors are warmly invited to come, observe, and experience the discontinuation of the dialogue and the absurdity that is the bureaucratic system. The piece was inspired by the frustrations and disappointment that many of us feel as the result of different application processes in which the institutional, ‘other’ and unreachable, side is always superior to the side of the applicant.
The terms, grounds, and policies of acceptance of candidates are often subjective, unclear, nepotistic, or even corrupt. Some works of artists, who already dealt with the idea of application, have been used as an inspiration and was, in a way, appropriated as well. The Kafkaesque aspect of the feeling of being stuck in a vicious circle of bureaucratic nightmare had already been addressed by a Slovak artist Tomáš Džadoň in his piece Deadline.
One other example is a Bulgarian artist Cristina David published the whole book consisting of applications for realisations of art projects. Her promised outcome was sometimes exaggerated; the outcome of this performance is, on the other hand, minimalistic.
This participatory performance implies an open invitation for involvement of the audience. Nothing is promised, but instead the possibility to participate in the artwork is offered. The only thing possible is to apply.
CSEEAH is a group of seven students (BiH, CL, HR, RS, SK, UA, UK) that took part in the seminar titled Central and South Eastern European Art Histories at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, that was held by Prof. Dr. Suzana Milevska.
The idea for a performance came after the discontinuation of the mentioned seminar, which followed after the rejection of Prof. Milevska’s application to the second open call for the Endowed Professorship and the rejection of her resignation. The performative lecture “Disobedient (10 reasons for resignation)” held by Prof. Milevska at Schillerpark, inspired the invitation from Michaela Stock Gallery to CSEEAH students, to develop and present a piece within Gallery’s performance festival.
Project documentation:
