Blog

Reshaping Zagreb Intensive: How We Switched From Physical to Digital

RESHAPE (Reflect, Share, Practice, Experiment) is a 3-year trajectory aiming at the development of new organisational models for a fair, sustainable, solidary and geographically balanced arts ecosystem in Europe and South Mediterranean countries. Forty artists and art professionals (we call them ‘Reshapers’) are working in small groups on answers and proposals around 5 complementary topics like value of social fabric, fair governance, solidarity funding, trans/post national practices and art and citizenship. Apart from these workshops in small groups, all Reshapers work together during a week in the form of an ‘intensive’; one was organised in Cluj in November 2019 and a second one was planned from 9 to 13 march in Zagreb, Croatia.

Blog

Hey stranger...

I hope I’m not interrupting your midday relaxation or your lunch break with friends. If you are still able to safely enjoy your social activities amidst the chaos and fear from the Coronavirus, I tip my hat and I’m raising my glass to you. Enjoy!

Video

Asena Günal: Working in Oppressive Environment

Asena Günal, the program coordinator of Depo in Istanbul, talks about independent and contemporary art sector in Istanbul and their working environment.

Audio

Trans- and post- instead of national: Mobility of artists now and before

Being an international community of artists, cultural workers and curators, this group was interested in concepts of “trans” and “post” when discussing mobility as way of living and creating.

Blog

The Department for Civil Imagination: An institution for reshaping realities in poetic, practical and political ways

Shaping, reshaping and changing the culture and arts sector often requires mapping and understanding of what is possible, not only to make, but to imagine as well.

Audio

Athens Working Group: On Fairness, Collaboration and Work in Time of Crisis

Myrto Katsimicha in conversation with four practitioners working in the cultural field in Athens that participated in Reshape Remote Athens workshop in May 2020 at Onassis Air.

Audio

Culture in the state of crisis- a conversation with representatives of Ukrainian Cultural Foundation

Just like all around the world, the COVID-19 outbreak has shaken the cultural sector in Ukraine, a country that has been struggling with an unstable political situation for a while now. The rise of cultural life after the Dignity Revolution of 2014, was soon accompanied by the establishment of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation - the state institution that introduces new mechanisms of funding for initiatives in the field of culture and creative industries. Thanks to the UCF, the non-governmental sector was not left to fend for itself during the pandemic, as the foundation took on the role of a crisis manager, trying to adapt quickly to the new realities.

Zeitgeist

Hope Through the Fog

McGonagle argues that a similar solution like that to the Covid-19 virus, to the other virus – the virus of the small state agenda which has infected societal provision and expectations – lies in a cultural turn towards reciprocal social relations, which can be articulated in a total art process that is not limited to rhetorical modes of production and consumption. The stakes could not be higher for individuals and communities right now in this immediate crisis but questions about what principles will inform the future are also necessary and important, to see hope through the fog.

Method

RESHAPE: An Experiment in Collaborative Change-making

RESHAPE is an attempt to kick-start our collective imagination. It is an experimental, collaborative, bottom-up process that creates instruments for transition towards a new, fairer arts ecosystem.

News

Value of art in social fabric: Remote Lisbon Workshop

The remote work within the RESHAPE group continues, this time in remote Lisbon. The group Value of Art in Social Fabric will work from 26 to 29 May on shaping their prototypes that will offer new approaches to this topic.

Zeitgeist

Overproduction

This article was published in an issue (1/2020) of the Polish Magazine Dialog that deals with artistic labour. Overproduction results from the penetration of market mechanisms to all areas of our lives, fields of creativity, and institutions in which we work. It is an element of the system preying on our activity, because it is primarily this mobility – not content and sense – that generates profits. When we stop, get tired or stand aside – we become redundant to the system.

Zeitgeist

Coffee

A poem by Muanis Sinanović. Translated from Slovenian by Lukas Debeljak.

Zeitgeist

Art and Culture after Covid-19

Everyone seems to agree that the Covid-19 pandemic has a huge impact on the economy, social relations, politics, and culture. We’re nowhere near through this crisis yet, and alternative futures are already being promoted, others wait to ‘get back to normal’, while most people are too busy coping with the emergency. In this ferment of events and contestation, it’s valuable to be reminded of the bigger picture. This essay by Professor Justin O’Connor (University of South Australia) places the current situation of cultural organisations and workers in a historical context, reminding us of their developing relationship with the political economy of recent decades. It is also challenging because it asks what compromises have been made by cultural actors in pursuit of recognition and at what costs.

News

Using Tarot to identify collective vision

During the weekend of 11th - 13th June, Reshaper Petr Dlouhy and his colleagues from Prague based Studio Alta went out of the town and settled in a small camp in the countryside to have a plenary meeting whose main aim was to identify the collective vision of the institution’s future.After sunset, Petr gathered the core team of Studio Alta counting 10 culture workers for a tarot session by the fire. He provided the team with a special reading which was focused on embracing the potential of collective imagination to deal with the current issue(s).

Video

Opening of the RESHAPE Conference and Lecture by Alenka Zupančič: The End of Fantasy Versus the Fantasy of the End

Opening speach by Tamara Bračič Vidmar and Milica Ilić at the RESHAPE Conference in Ljubljana and a lecture by Alenka Zupančič, moderated by Marijana Rimanić.