Text:
Contemplating renewing
Anca Verona Mihuleț
A conversation between Anca Mihuleț and Andreja Kulunčić on the occasion of a solo exhibition at the Modern Gallery in Podgorica
Dear Andreja, we met almost ten years ago in your studio in Zagreb, which functioned for years as a space for production, meetings, workshops, and roundtable discussions. What caught my attention in our first conversation was the mind map that partially covered one of the walls of your workspace. What does the mind map represent for you, and how did you start using this method of thinking and envisioning future projects?
The mind map is a constant in my studio. Each one lasts from two to four years, during which I slowly construct them and then replace them with the next one. They are useful to me when I’m building complex, long-term projects because it helps me structure the project. I could compare it to the wireframe a sculptor builds for their future clay sculpture. Currently, I’m working on a mind map for a text on socially engaged art and its activation potentials. At your suggestion, I’m transferring my recent map to the wall of the Modern Gallery as part of this exhibition. It’s not finished yet, but it introduces the audience to my process and thinking about socially engaged art.
Do you see socially engaged art as a mechanism for profound social change or a strategy to combat disparities?
I start from the thesis that socially engaged art, through its actions, can make the world a better place. For me, its essence lies in addressing concrete social issues and confronting the audience with personal responsibility for social deviations.
I believe that through precise strategies, socially engaged artistic practice can lead to tangible social changes, thus being an important agent or catalyst in society. It can serve as a channel for communication, sensitization, unveiling structures and mechanisms of societal stigmatization, and proposing solutions for a more just coexistence. As part of the hegemonic apparatus of the state, art has established modes of visibility and funding. Within ruptures in the ideological matrix, it can critically focus on reality and point out ingrained mechanisms of stigmatization. Opening questions, raising awareness of issues, facing the personal role of the viewer, finding possible solutions, and ultimately, changing the existing situation are the fundamental goals of my artistic practice.
We can expand the conversation to encompass social practice as a broader artistic category to which socially engaged art belongs. I refer to all artistic projects that take social relations or the results of these relations as their material, through active viewer participation, critique of social relations, questioning of social situations, working with specific communities, and the like. Within this delineated category,
socially engaged art is a type of social practice that goes beyond symbolic or merely aesthetic results. Instead, through tactical and subversive actions outside the artistic system, it achieves visible changes in the real social fabric.
Therefore, the role of the artist within socially engaged art extends beyond criticism or aestheticization to constant knowledge dissemination and building a platform for the collaborative shaping of social relations that lead to actual changes.
Besides Europe, you have worked around the world, from North to South America, from Asia to Oceania. How do you navigate the complexity of the locations where you conduct your research? How do you position yourself in front of different socio-political textures that you encounter?
The issues I address in my works often have their roots in the society in which I live. Post-socialist societies continue to be spaces of experimentation. I don’t want to say that all of them end in failure, but they are mostly painful incisions that we, as citizens, experience very personally. Everything is on the “social amplifier,” visible, recognizable, superficially repaired, but without real structural solutions. In that light, I can easily understand the problems of other societies; I see cracks, protruding bones, sick organs… Special X‑ray glasses are not needed to notice social injustices, people who are unfairly excluded and pushed to the social margins, and who, on the other hand, vividly reflect the state of society like mirrors. For example, the issue of migrant workers who are not well received in Western Europe has been well known in Yugoslavia since the 1960s. We had several migration waves to the West in the past, and the latest significant migration of Croatian citizens began after Croatia joined the European Union. Therefore, it was not difficult for me to understand the problems faced by migrants in Austria, Germany, or Switzerland.
I would highlight two of my works, “Bosnians Out!” from 2008, which won the second prize at the 53rd Herceg Novi Winter Salon in Montenegro in 2020, and “EQUALS – for the acceptance of diversity” from 2017. Both works have been exhibited and cited many times. The first was created at the invitation of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Ljubljana, and the second was a self-financed project in Zagreb. I collaborated with three construction workers from Bosnia in Ljubljana who were working on the construction of the museum building at that time through a large construction company that secured their work permits and took care of their accommodation and meals. The conditions provided for them were entirely inadequate, but the workers couldn’t protest because their work permits were tied to that company, and termination would mean the loss of their work visas and a return to Bosnia. Together with the workers, I created city light posters that accurately depicted their living conditions and the problems they faced in Slovenia. By placing them in the city center, we publicly protested against such a situation, hoping to initiate a dialogue with the public. We succeeded in that, as evidenced by the censorship of the work by the city administration. The day after the posters were put up, the city removed all the posters from the center of Ljubljana! After insistence from the Museum, the posters were returned. https://www.andreja.info/en/projects/bosnians-out/
In the EQUALS project, I worked in Zagreb with five women of different minority identities, paraphrasing a question posed by Indian-American anthropologist Arjun Appadurai in the book “Fear of Small Numbers.” I was interested in why people in Zagreb “fear” women who have crossed the age of fifty, who are rare (in terms of small numbers), and completely harmless to the local population, however, what is the reason for their constant discrimination. I wanted to identify the basic problems they face on a daily and institutional level, which result from discriminatory behaviour and legislation. After a series of joint working meetings, we concluded that they are the ones exposed to discomfort and fear, for example, when passing through certain parts of the city because of skin colour or religious symbols (headscarf), feeling uneasy about using their own language (Arabic), having no opportunity to adopt a child in a same-sex relationship, and facing asylum rejections. In addition to posters with their “wishes” for the normalization of life, especially for their children, we also created a short educational animation aimed at young people and spread it on social networks. The work has achieved success that we did not actually expect. It has been exhibited in more than ten countries so far because, unfortunately, identical discrimination problems are present in other countries around us. https://www.andreja.info/en/projects/equals-for-the-acceptance-of-diversity/
In both of these works, we can talk about a dual line of action. On the one hand, in the process of creation, and on the other hand, in the impact of the work’s results, which raises awareness and thus changes society.
During the work on both projects, changes occurred within ourselves — our collaboration, the personal empowerment of the participants through public engagement, questioning positions, and a sense of unity. Here, I would like to recall a related thought of Antonio Gramsci when he described agency as a war of positions in which we need to create situations and empower individuals who can lead movements towards collective change.
The concepts of change, equality, labor, legality-illegality, people, rights, self-organization, stigmatization, the stranger, or tolerance often appear in the discourse surrounding your work. Indeed, you speak very directly and openly about social differences.
On the other hand, you also follow initiated projects in a way that research continues and never stops, finding different ways of presenting or repeating existing ideas. Do you consider yourself an activist or socially engaged artist? What would be the limits of socially engaged art from your perspective?
From the very beginning of my artistic practice, I am addressing themes such as racism, gender equality, and social justice and their impact on individuals and society at large. I use various methods of social practice to stimulate the audience’s thinking and actions regarding socio-political issues. Through my work, I create a positive atmosphere of dialogue and awareness about social problems for which I believe we can collectively find points of resistance. I want to enable individuals participating in the project to speak about their issues themselves; I provide them with tools but do not speak for them. Art is part of a privileged social structure. I use its resources with a clear goal of creating space for those who lack a voice. It is crucial to me that everyone has their active agency within the field they consider significant. Our community becomes fragmented, the social body dissipates. Instead of political beings, people have become consumers. We individualize, self-indulge regardless of others’ needs, as German – South Korean philosopher Chul Han warn us. Therefore, I believe it is essential to constantly reflect on the kind of community we are creating and whether there is room for better relationships.
Art has transformative power. It alienates, awakens, questions, directs our gaze to the people around us, and encourages empathy. I becomes WE.
I would say that my work is not activist, but it is engagement for dialogue and understanding different positions. In that sense, I do not see art as having limits; it is limited by budget, the art market, which co-opts it in various ways and takes away its edge, but this is not a characteristic unique to art. We live in hypercapitalism, and we should try not to succumb as much and when we are able. In that sense, compassion, empathy, love for the person next to us, even if they may not be similar to us in religious, racial, ethical, sexual, class, or any other sense, remains a personal decision.
My works speak about the importance of taking personal responsibility for the people around us, as well as for the society we live in. I believe that art has strong political potential,
a view supported by the thoughts of the Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe in her essay “Artistic Activism and Agonistic Spaces.” Mouffe argues that artistic practices play a crucial role in undermining dominant hegemony and constructing new subjectivities. She refers to practices that raise awareness through an agonistic approach, making visible what the dominant consensus seeks to obscure and giving a voice to those silenced within the existing hegemony. Their goal, she says, is to occupy public space and disrupt the glossy image that corporate capitalism seeks to spread, bringing to the forefront its repressive character.
In my works, I invite the audience to creatively and consciously engage in the process, giving them space for decision-making and collaboration in the creation or completion of the work. Such participation can impact the existing situation and lead to change. Therefore, contemporary socially engaged artistic practice is, for me, an important agent in society.
In this context, I define an agent as a driver of actions that are thoughtful, involve decision-making, lead towards collective change, and take on responsibilities.
As an example of a work that involves active collaboration with a clear goal and outcome, undermining existing hegemony, I will mention my piece “NAMA: 1908 employees, 15 department stores” from the year 2000. It is a political and engaged artistic work that emerged in collaboration with the union of the department store chain NAMA during unsuccessful workers’ protests due to unpaid wages and empty shelves in the stores. Among three completely different ideas with which I wanted to “amplify the voice” of the workers in public, they chose the suggestion involving posters in city light boxes, considering it provided the greatest visibility. We placed posters with NAMA’s worker in the recognizable work uniform and the text NAMA: 1908 employees, 15 department stores in central city locations. After three days, there was a flurry of articles in the newspapers questioning who and with what purpose had placed the posters. The existential uncertainty of the workers was brought further into the public focus, as was the issue of non-transparent privatizations. Through the media, a public dialogue was restarted and that pressure also helped to reverse the government previous decision to close the company and sell the properties. The final outcome was bankruptcy with restructuring. Workers were not laid off, wages were paid, and department stores continued to operate. https://www.andreja.info/en/projects/nama-1908-employees-15-department-stores/
Recently, you exhibited the project from 1999, “Closed Reality – Embryo,” at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka. This work was based on an interactive web application, involving several scientists and sociologists, sparking a discussion about the social implications of genetic engineering even back then. What do you think the Embryo project says about today’s specific context? Do you consider it historical, or do you believe it still has an impact?
Embryo was, for me, a project that spoke about the future. The ’90s were dark, difficult, and depressing due to the war. I wanted to open a different topic, initiate a dialogue where we could collectively imagine, dream, and create a (distant) future world. At that moment, it was a good decision; people became interested, engaged, and the atmosphere was positive. https://www.andreja.info/en/projects/closed-reality-embryo/
Today when contemplating the “future,” often envisioned with a dystopian end for humanity in the era of the Anthropocene, I believe Embryo remains relevant, albeit in a different context. Currently, I am working on a new project that connects the question of the future of technology, drawing from another internet-based work of mine, “Distributive Justice” from 2012. This project initiated a collective dialogue on the fair distribution of goods and questioned the sense of personal involvement in it. https://www.andreja.info/en/projects/distributive-justice/
However, today, considering the planetary conditions of the Anthropocene that surround us, ecological justice, climate risks, global resource distribution, and social justice reveal an inevitable global interconnectedness. Consequently, we increasingly recognize the necessity of raising awareness about the current state and changing our relationship with the world around us.
The fundamental question now, I would say, is: what is a just distribution on a planetary level, and what tools do we have at our disposal to achieve it?
The technologies we use, including artificial intelligence, mirror the inhumane aspects of the current society. Therefore, planetary justice is inherently connected to necropolitics, the control of death through state violence, which particularly interests me within the broader picture I have outlined, relying on the theoretical reflections of the Italian-Australian philosopher Rosi Braidotti and the Cameroonian historian and political scientist Achille Mbembe. Braidotti warns us about the other face of biopolitics, which, besides its connection with Zoe, also has a profound association with necropolitics, the takeover of control over death through state violence, as discussed by Mbembe. Death emerges as a central element of socio-political relations in Africa and other underprivileged regions of the world. It is legitimate, acceptable, undisputed, while the mechanisms of violence are constantly upgraded. Necropolitics and global neoliberal economies mutually support each other, creating oppressive societies, where death – not life – becomes a means of power and domination over a significant part of the world’s population. According to Braidotti, these are the inhumane aspects of the posthuman condition. Referring to Mbembe, she sees many contemporary wars led by Western allies as neocolonial conquests for the extraction of resources for profit. Braidotti calls the use of technologically mediated violence a new “semiotics of killing,” creating parallel “worlds of death” circulating the global networks as infotainment, challenging posthuman ethics.
I see a close connection to Embryo, i.e., technologies influencing humanity, in the theories of the posthuman, or the new subjectivity that increasingly binds humans to machines, making our identity fluid and changeable. We become assemblages of everything that surrounds us, nomadic subjects, as Braidotti suggests.
The upcoming project, “Worried, we stand at the threshold of a conquered world,” based on these premises, is being developed in collaboration with the Art Pavilion in Zagreb and is currently in the fundraising stage for production.
Since 2018, you have dedicated your artistic energy to the multidisciplinary project “You betrayed the Party just when you should have helped it.” For this project, you have used your artistic method of research and site-specific interventions over an extended period, collaborating with individuals from various disciplines. The project involves the creation of performative video works, photographs, the collection of testimonies, and the organization of workshops aimed at reconstructing the mental and emotional state of female prisoners on the islands of Goli and Sveti Grgur. How would you characterize this project – as representative of Croatian society, as disruptive to the established historical narrative, or as a collective responsibility?
The multi-year artistic research project ” You betrayed the Party just when you should have helped it,” initiated in 2019, was fully presented to the public in a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka in 2022. Prior to that, in 2021, it was exhibited at the Historical and Maritime Museum in Pula, featuring a video installation and a discussion on “History/HERstory: A Discussion on Women in the History of the Political Camp Goli otok.” This year, it was showcased in Manila at the Vargas Museum, with a different emphasis on the workshop components of the project.
In this project, grounded in socially engaged artistic practices and realized through various contemporary art media, I, along with my exceptional collaborators Renata Jambrešić Kirin, an anthropologist and feminist theorist, and Dubravka Stijačić, a psychotherapist, addressed the suffering of more than 850 women prisoners on Goli otok and Sveti Grgur from 1950 to 1956, following the political rift between Tito and Stalin. The marginalized history of women served as the starting point for research and activation of the theme, manifesting through spatial artistic interventions at the sites of the female political camp, three exhibitions, a website, publications, strategic work on media visibility, and a discursive program, including a series of workshops and discussions. https://www.zene-arhipelag-goli.info/en/home‑2/
The project problematizes the collective amnesia surrounding the violent history of women, aiming to establish a more just memory and striving to raise awareness about the fact that the structure of a camp is always possible.
The project also points to the silent approval and participation in totalitarian regimes that lurk around us. In other words, it calls for collective responsibility towards the future by taking us back 64 years to an untold chapter of our shared history.
One significant segment of the ongoing project, which holds particular importance for me, is the participatory construction of anti-monuments through the “850 women for 850 women” action. This involves inviting women to create, through workshops, a small sculpture in clay for each of the female prisoners who endured the camp repression. Through a collective process of building an anti-monument to a marginalized historical event as one of the filters for deconstruction, new reflection, acceptance of the past, and the creation of new memories, the project contributes to the decentralization of collective memory. The concept of anti-monuments engages the audience in the process of transferring memory, where each individual, depending on their personal interest, seeks information and answers. By constructing their own memories, they become bearers of memory — monuments — taking on responsibility for the future. https://www.zene-arhipelag-goli.info/en/anti-monument/
In a series of your projects, you have embraced a more direct approach to addressing social injustice — using simulated advertising posters containing testimonials of vulnerable individuals (i.e., migrant workers, teenage mothers, immigrants), granting freedom and a voice to people society tends to perceive and treat one-dimensionally.
Additionally, your long-term project “EQUALS – for the acceptance of diversity” revolves around these themes. Do you consider this process synonymous with artifice or with the creation of social awareness? How do you perceive the presence of the Other in today’s world?
If we view artifice as the idea of a process that brings about changes in the texture of events or actions to serve the purpose of art, exposition, or presentation, then I don’t consider the processes I go through in my projects as the artifice of life. On the contrary, the goal is to directly, sometimes provocatively (as seen in posters like “Bosnians out!” or ” Austrians only”), use artistic tools to impact life. Changes occur in the texture of the society we share, not in the art from which the action is facilitated.
All of us can, in some aspect of life, become the Other. Remaining unemployed, falling ill, migrating, becoming impoverished, ultimately aging — these are all possibilities of marginalization and losing social roles and privileges. The only constant is that we live in a fluid, changing world where we rely on each other and the communities we build.
What I problematize within my works is recognizing ourselves in different definitions of the Other and sensitizing ourselves to such and similar life situations.
Considering the state of today’s world, I believe collaborations, closer connections, and expanding alliances are necessary in the effort to create a better society, where art can be one of the important agents.
PODGORICA, DECEMBER 2023.