EQUALS — for the acceptance of diversity
The EQUALS collective is directing attention to the presence of discrimination in Croatian society, and raising awareness on the importance of acceptance of diversity
Interventions in public space, 2017 – 2018
The EQUALS collective is a group of women from Zagreb of various ethnic, religious, racial and sexual identities. The aim of their activity is directing attention to the presence of discrimination in Croatian society, and raising awareness on the importance of acceptance of diversity. The collective was initiated and led by visual artist Andreja Kulunčić, the other members wish to remain anonymous.
The work of the EQUALS collective consists of a series of posters, billboards and animation (>) which sensitize the attitude towards women of different ethnic, religious, racial and sexual affiliations.
About the collective: “EQUALS” is the name under which a group of women of different minority identities operates. Initially gathered at the invitation of the artist Andreja Kulunčić, who is also a member of the collective, they detected through a series of workshop meetings the basic problems they face on a daily and institutional level, which are the result of discriminatory forms of behavior and discriminatory legislation: from the fear of passing through certain areas city because of skin color or religious features (hijab), discomfort due to the use of one’s own language (Arabic) to the impossibility of adopting a child in a same-sex union or obtaining asylum. Together, they design a public campaign in which they speak from the first person about these problems. The campaign is implemented by sharing an animated video on social networks, posters in city light boxes and billboards. With a public campaign, the mentioned problems are manifested as a symptom of society, and not just the private problems of a certain group. Among them, Andreja Kulunčić represents a normative identity and an intersectional threshold for their passage into the system, passing on artistic resources to them as tools for self-articulation.
In a time of social crisis, growing poverty and uncertainty, the weakening of national states in the face of economic globalization and increased migration, national states are consolidating with the idea of the unity and homogeneity of the community. In such a constellation, the dominant entity perceives minority groups, which with different identities and mixed statuses erode the unity of the collective identity, as a collective stranger who is a threat to imagined homogeneity, national economic strength and cultural coherence (A. Appadurai “Fear of small numbers”). Identities that deviate from the norm (in this case Romani woman, Muslim woman, lesbian, black woman, asylum seeker from Syria) become the object of intolerance and the target of violence that will change shape depending on the identity determination of the threatened body.
Publicly speaking to their fellow citizens through social networks and advertisements, the women of the EQUALS collective, who, being women over forty years of age and also minority identities, at least doubly refract otherness, inscribe their bodies in the public space, saying that they do not want to agree to the tyranny of the statistical construct and that they want to live in the city, which they consider their own, without fear and humiliation.
PROJECT PRODUCTION: POSTERS Authors: EQUALS collective / Design: Dejan Dragosavac – Ruta / Photo: Ivan Posavec ///// ANIMATION: Concept and screenwriting: EQUALS collective / Direction and animation: Vedran Štefan / Editing: Maida Srabović / Sound design and mixing: Ivan Mihoci / Music: Žen “Slava Raškaj” / After the video original of the ISTE collective / Producent: MAPA Association / Zagreb, 2017 ///// Concept and project organisation: Andreja Kulunčić / Video and photo documentation: Ivo Martinović / Texts: Irena Bekić / Production: MAPA Association, Zagreb, 2017