WE from in betWEen
Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo
WE from in betWEen
Gallery Hestia
Artist: diSTRUKTURA
Curator: Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo
27.9.- 9.12. 2018.
We are living in a beautiful wOURld
In 2007 diSTRUKTURA, formed by Milica Milićević (1979) and Milan Bosnić (1969), started an artistic project titled We are living in a beautiful wOURld. Through it they gathered documents and photographs tied to their closest emotional context: that of their friends in exile. A large number of young people was departing in search of opportunities and a better life, leaving Serbia, a country which since the beginnings of the Yugoslav Wars in 1991 found itself in a situation of not only political and economic but also existential crisis.
Between 2013 and 2016 their work continued in Austria, trailing the paths of immigrants from Ex-Yugoslavia in the cities in which they had established themselves. In this process, their friends´ photographs and the emails they exchanged telling their experience of adaptation, became a research about specific contexts of immigrants that worked in the context of culture in this country. The documentary work extended to encompass interviews as well. Collected in a series of videos, testimonies altered with pathways of the most significant places of their lives in the new cities.
The visual drifts by which the artists formalised this project showed not only this series of subjective cartographies but also a map of their departure and arrival reflecting on identity, integrity and making of the relationship with others. Following the model of the situationist psychogeographies, the drawings of these places, the films and their access through QR codes were exhibited for the first time in 2013 in Akademie Graz, in Graz, extending the show in public space by placing the aforementioned codes at the locations they were referring to. In late 2016 the project was extended and showcased as an indoor installation at the solo exhibition organised by the KunstHalle, also in Graz. In April 2015 a version of that installation was part of the group show Wander Lab at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Vojvodina in the city of Novi Sad, Serbia. Finally, We are living in a beautiful wOURld was presented in May 2018 at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Subotica, Serbia.
Upon Hestia Belgrade´s invitation diSTRUKTURA has followed up on their research in a different context: the migration of artists, intellectuals and other agents of the Latin American cognitive capital in the cities of Barcelona and Madrid in Spain. This change of direction, from East to West -from Ex-Yugoslavia to Austria – has now become a transit from West to East – from South America to Spain-, and it allows us to think alongside these paths, in these lines of drifts relating to our identities and emotions and mostly about the processes of establishments of life models in the context of the globalisation of post industrial capitalism[1]. These transits are not casual. They refer to a colonial and imperialist past but also to a post-colonial reality in which the territories of the so called Global South are found. A geopolitical concept which reflects the realities and similarities, but also the opportunities and challenges which unite the regions of Latin America and East Europe – a relationship that is the primary focus for Hestia and the projects it develops – together with Asia and the Middle East.
Historic cartographies: colonial and neo-colonial migratory movements
We are not so far away. The 12.620 km which physically separate Santiago de Chile, the furthest city of origin of this project, and Belgrade could be linked in time by conquests which are not so distant. From a materialist point of view, they are united by movements and strategies of power which seek the same purpose: territorial control and its productive and consumer capacity, as well as its strategic geography in order to preserve the economic control.
In Modernity there was a last name which brought together this power: the Habsburgs. It is the same lineage of the kings of the Spanish Empire who organised the control of the recently conquered America (since Carlos V). It is also the name of the regents of the initial Sacred Roman Germanic Empire and later Austro-Hungarian Empire, key figures of the many difficulties of Europe´s centre and its fight for the East. Its history, under the flag of progress cannot be dissociated from the battles, massacres and movements of people in the world since the 16th century. The romantic processes of emancipation and nationalism which took place in the 19th century rose up against the structures that they themselves had made (in Spain´s case against the structure that the Bourbons inherited since 1700).
In this way we can trace a chronology of the economic interests of control over the sources of wealth, production and consumption -disguised with different masks of independence, nationalism, religion or the expansion of democratic models- as a motivation for the states, old and new, the revolutions of the elite until the Soviet expansion, the different ways of European migration produced around the First and Second World War, the colonial economic control of Europe and the United States of America, the politics of pro-European pacification in the Balkans or the arrival of Spanish corporations in Latin America.
Nowadays it can be argued that we are still moving alongside colonial transits, despite the apparent sensation of mobility and freedom that the immaterial work could offer, where the metropolis, now deterritorialised, is the capital. It is the transits that begin in order to conquer new worlds (markets) from the centres to the peripheries. Or like in the cases of this project, the ones produced in search of opportunities from the peripheral and/or colonial regions, historically beaten up and with dissimilar and violent life conditions. In this way the flux of people towards the ancient metropolises does not stop, still privileged in their politico-economic structures.
The city as stage
If there is a common stage to all the protagonists of this large history it would have the morphology of the Modern city.
Let´s visualise.
Belgrade with its inheritance of the French illustrated model and Austrian palaces, mixed with the traces of the Ottoman model and Communist progress, is now testimony of the rise of skyscrapers built by Middle Eastern investors while there are still remains from the NATO bombings in 1999. It is estimated that around 12.000 youngsters leave the country every year, positioning itself as the second to last on the list that measures the ‘capacity of retaining talent’[2]. According to the United Nations, in 2011 Serbia´s migration was 313.411, 22% of that residing in Austria[3].
Graz was the Habsburg´s residence between the 14th and 17th centuries. Occupied by Napoleon and bombed during the Second World War, it still preserves the baroque stamp of its palaces and churches. Nowadays it is known for its university and cultural festivals, which have provided new structures for the city such as the Murisenl, an auditorium situated in the middle of the Mur river. About 7% of its population comes from countries of ex-Yugoslavia[4].
Madrid, the kingdom´s capital and headquarter of the political power, colonising metropolis. Its condition of court and/or capital has made it receptive of people from all over the world. Its institutional and economic growth can be traced in the historic centre of palaces, squares and churches. It has been reformed since the beginning of the last century, extending itself onto successive avenues in which big corporations and banks have settled. Since the middle of the 20th century a number of anodyne neighbourhoods have risen in its surroundings to receive the different waves of migration. In 2018, 43% of the immigrant population in the city is of Latin American origin[5].
Barcelona is the symbol of the brand city, spectacular in its image and in the growth of the tourist industry, which has converted its centre in a big park of cultural entertainment. Many of the big emblems of this situation are found in the Modernist architecture from the beginning of the 20th century. Buildings which have risen thanks to the industrial growth and the commerce developed with the ancient colonies. In the second half of the 20th century it continued its development, growing thanks to the flood of internal migration and the urban and real estate plans developed around the 1992. Olympic Games in. Today, more than 92.000 people of Latin American origin are registered in its census[6].
Spain implemented a specific model of urbanism in its American colonies. Many of its historic centres preserve the same orthogonal reticle distribution with a main central square where the church and the government headquarters are located. In the 19th century, with the consecutive proclamation of independence between 1811 and 1898, most of the new illustrated governments constructed governmental palaces in the capital cities and following the modernising tendencies they opened up new avenues and facilitated ministries, hospitals, academies, theatres and museums. If we focus on the cities of origin of the people interviewees in diSTRUKTURA´s project, we can see this evolution in Santiago de Chile, Bogotá, Quito, San José, and specially in Buenos Aires, which until the 1940s lived a grand opulence which reverted the magnificence of the city. In the following decades of the 20th century, a series of developmental projects stood out which realised themselves in an international rationally styled architecture. Brasilia is the most significant case since it has been risen form zero, but this idea of progress is also present in the architecture of the city of Caracas.
At the present time the same problems of violence, class difference and marginality of different degrees can be recognised in all of them, inherited from the colonial and post-colonial economic systems and its influence on the local government and economy, be it for opposition or intrusion. According to the study Latin American city: theories, actors and conflicts: “The phenomenon of marginality will be pointed out as the principal obstacle for development. On one hand, for bearing witness to the incapacity of the economic systems of the region to incorporate to the productive process those groups which engage in areas of limited qualification and productivity (Rosenblüth, 1968). On the other hand, because of the political threat that represented the popular avalanche on the cities in the different precarious living formats (barriadas en Lima, callampas en Santiago de Chile, favelas en Río de Janeiro, villas miseria en Buenos Aires, etc.) (Rios, 1960)”[7]. An idea of development which has left no trace of vernacular architecture or of inclusion of other models of living from the original villages.
Processes of hospitality, hostility and deterritorialisation
The movements of this artistic research started in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Venezuela towards Barcelona and Madrid; the motives span from the search of new work opportunities to love relationships. But in all of them, bureaucracy and the limits for obtaining the status of legal citizenship and to be able to live and practice a productive lucrative activity are similar.
In 1995 and 1996 French philosopher Jacques Derrida imparted the “Seminar on Hospitality” at the Institute Mémoires de l´Édition Contemporaine, close to Caen, France[8]. In these sessions he differentiated between “the law of the hospitality” and the “laws of hospitality”. The first refers to a universal concept of unconditional acceptance of the other in one own´s space. The laws, in plural, on the other hand, refer to the specific political measures defined by the law and the culture of a society and the state. Derrida identifies in both a condition and ambiguity in the power relation of the one who is accepting and the one being accepted, reflecting always in a structure of dominance and subordination. The host always perceives the guest as a being in temporal transit, someone who arrives and at a certain point will leave. Biopolitics, and specially migratory regulations reflect this condition of temporality and incapacity in the establishing of a harmonius relationship with the Other, creating thus a situation of hostility.
Historically, the relationships between host and guest (invited or imposed) were founded in the different examples of colonialism in an implicit and explicit violence. Today hostility is not only practiced by the control of states and their politics. Nowadays, it affects the being in its condition of transit, not only physical, favoured and perpetuated by globalisation and the capitalist cognitive system which does not cease to be a sort of neo-colonisation. Berardo Bifo, Italian theorist, reflects in his latest book: “Cultural nomadism has become in a sickness generalised in the era of globalisation of the labour markets and media communications. Nomadism, the process of cultural deterritorialisation and its subsequent psychological exile, affects profoundly the perception of the ‘I’, causing psychological suffering at the same time as it opens new perspectives of imagination and identification”[9]. That is where the challenge lies: in our capacity to re-imagine ourselves and construct new forms of relationships with the Other and therefore new forms of living.
Drift as resistance
Milica Milićević and Milan Bosnić propose to Patricio, Francisco, Andrea, Roy, Dayana and Aymara to show us their paths, their movements. They speak to us about concepts of adaptation and translation, but we also trace together with them a route through the emotional places which constitute the being. The six protagonist elaborate a cartography of desire[10], of those micro-politics which unite in a mix of compromise, resistance, refuge, escape, leisure and/or work, and which are the reflex of the characteristics and different ways of life of each one of them. In identifying of their power to resist is the first step to create “new perspectives of imagination and identification” which Bifo proposes.
In order to achieve this, diSTRUKTURA adopts from the situationists the strategies of drift and psycho-geographic maps. Among the experiences developed by the Situationist International between 1957 and 1972[11] the situationists proposed processes of decontextualisation and re-contextualisation of the urban thread through discontinuous situations and subjective experiences in the city. In this way, in the psycho-geographic maps, such as the Guide psycogéographique de Paris. Discours sur les passions de l´amour and The naked city realized by Guy Debord in 1957, the plan of the city is reconstructed in autonomous zones linked by arrows or vectors of desire. This diagram expresses the drifts realised in each occasion: a free exercise of wandering without a direction and without a productive goal in the city. This action aimed at escaping the transits imposed by the bourgeois life model and its politic and economic capitalist structure and mediated the autonomy around the individual[12].
In the maps of WE from in betWEen we would walk from the Parque del Oeste (West Park) in Madrid to the beaches situated East of the city of Barcelona. The stories, descriptions, photographs, the drawings and the frottages (rubbing) of the city´s surface document in a qualitative way the possibilities of escaping, the attempts of adaptation and the survival modes in the global cognitive capitalism, be it from the takeover of the model to its frontal opposition. They do it in a way that accentuates the materiality of the practice in the traces drawn by the artists and the images captured during their walks. Together with the words of immigrants landscape is constructed, not a rational one but one that refers to the memory and emotional experience. A collage which, as Julio Cortazar´s novel Rayuela[13], could be divided into chapters to be read in two different ways: in a traditional order -which the Argentine writer called “From the other side”- and in the proposal of a drift lecture, jumping from one fragment onto another- which he called “From diverse sides”.
Thought for action
A distinct sign which repeats itself in all the stories of WE from betWEen is the allusion to the different ways of speech. Even if the common language for everyone is Spanish, each one of them tell their own experience of differentiation because of the accent and the use of words and expressions which are not common on the Iberian Peninsula. This ‘speech’ is defined as the “linguistic system of a region, locality or community, with its own features within another more extensive system” and also as the “individual act of the exercise of language, produced by choosing determined signs among the ones the language offers, through its oral and written realisation”[14]. It is thus produced by difference.
Pancho is the affectionate nickname given to Francisco in America. It is the name of Chilean curator and researcher interviewed in Madrid. In his video he points out how ‘pancho’ is also used as a contemptuous name for South Americans. This fact and other aspects of his skin, his accent, his sexual identity, make him declare himself from a marginalised place. In this sense, Francisco refers to a theoretical text, How to live together?[15] by Roland Barthes in which there is an analysis of the concept of “idiorythmic community”. In the text, ‘idiorythm’ is defined as marginality, which is precisely where a new way of common life could take place. Barthes proposes to think of a community which inhabits emotionally the spaces, an emotion based on singularity, subjectivity, in the nuances or the different degrees. Therefore an opposition to any power structure. It is precisely in this concept that a possibility for action could be opened up for a new way of life together: a new active union in the inclusion of all differences.
Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo is an independent curator
living and working in Barcelona, Spain.
[1] Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachussets, 2000.
[2] The World Economic Forum’s 2016/17 Global Competitiveness Report. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2016-2017-1 (last accessed 21/08/2018).
[3] Mirjana Bobić, Milica Vesković Anđelković, Vlasta Kokotović Kanazir, STUDY ON EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL MIGRATION OF SERBIA’S CITIZENS With Particular Focus On Youth, International Organization for Migration, Belgrade, 2016. https://serbia.iom.int/sites/default/files/publications/documents/Study%20on%20external%
20and%20internal%20migration%20of%20Serbia%27s%20citizens%20with%20particular
%20focus%20on%20Youth.pdf (last accessed 21/08/2018).
[4] Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graz (last accessed 21/08/2018).
[5] Ayuntamiento de Madrid: https://www.madrid.es/portales/munimadrid/es/Inicio/El-Ayuntamiento/Estadistica/Areas-de-
informacion-estadistica/Demografia-y-poblacion/Poblacion-extranjera/Poblacion-extranjera-en-la-ciudad-de-Madrid/?vgnextfmt=default&vgnextoid=c289d54944580510VgnVCM2000000c205a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=9ce23636b44b4210V
gnVCM2000000c205a0aRCRD (último acceso 21/08/2018).
[6] Ayuntamiento de Barcelona: http://www.bcn.cat/estadistica/castella/dades/index.htm (last accessed 21/08/2018).
[7] Jajamovich, Guillermo & Cortés, Alexis & Arango Lopez, Diego, “Ciudad latinoamericana: teorías, actores y conflictos”, URBANA: Revista Eletrônica do Centro Interdisciplinar de Estudos sobre a Cidade. 8. 1. 10.20396/urbana.v8i3.8647507. 2016.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314648652_Ciudad_latinoamericana_teorias_actores_y_conflictos (last accessed 21/08/2018).
[8] Jacques Derrida, Anne Dufourmantelle, Anne Dufourmantelle invite Jacques Derrida à repondre De l´hospitalité, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1997.
[9] Franco Bifo Berardo, And: Phenomenology of the End, Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents, Los Angeles, 2015.
[10] Suely Rolnik, Felix Guattari, Micropolítica. Cartografias del deseo, Traficantes de sueños, Madrid, 2006.
[11] Guy Debord, “Théorie de la Dérive”, Les Levres Nues nº9, Anvers, 1956; Guy Debord, La societé du spectacle, Buchet, Paris, 1967.
[12] Libero Andreotti, Xavier Costa, Libero Andreotti, Giorgio Agamben, Mirella Bandini, Constant, Jean-Clarence Lambert, Thomas Y. Levin, Thomas McDonough, Situacionistas. Arte, Política, Urbanismo, MACBA / Actar, Barcelona, 1996.
[13] Julio Cortazar, Rayuela, Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires,1963.
[14] Diccionario de la Real Academia de la Lengua Española, versión online: http://dle.rae.es/srv/fetch?id=JvnVDMt (last accessed 20/08/2018)
[15] Roland Barthes, Comment vivre ensemble. Simulations romanesques de quelques espaces quotidiens, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2002.
We from in betWEen
Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo
WE from in betWEen
Umetnici: diSTRUKTURA
Kustos: Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo
27.9.- 9.12. 2018.
We are living in a beautiful wOURld
Umetnički par diSTRUKTURA, koji čine Milica Milićević (1979.) i Milan Bosnić,(1969.) je 2007. započeo projekat pod nazivom We are living in a beautiful wOURld. Kroz ovaj projekat sakupili su dokumenta i fotografije u vezi sa najbližim emotivnim kontekstom: njihovim prijateljima u egzilu. Veliki broj mladih ljudi otišao je u potragu za novim mogućnostima i boljim životom, napuštajući Srbiju, državu koja se od početka ratova u bivšoj Jugoslaviji 1991. našla u situaciji ne samo političke i ekonomske, već i egzistencijalne krize.
Između 2013. i 2016. njihov rad se nastavio u Austriji, gde su pratili tragove imigranata iz bivše Jugoslavije u gradovima u kojima su se nastanili. Tokom ovog procesa, fotografije i mejlovi koje su razmenili sa svojim prijateljima u kojima im pričaju o svojim iskustvima prilagođavanja, su postali istraživanje specifičnog konteksta imigranata koji su radili u oblasti kulture u ovoj zemlji. Dokumentarni rad se proširio i obuhvatio i intervjue. Zaokruženi kao serija videa, svedočenja su se smenjivala sa putevima kroz najznačajnija mesta u njihovim životima u novim gradovima.
Vizuelna lutanja kojima su umetnici formalizovali ovaj projekat, nisu pokazala samo ovu seriju subjektivnih kartografija već takođe i mapu njihovih odlazaka i dolazaka, odražavajući indentitet, integritet i stvaranje veza sa drugima. Prateći model psihogeografije situacionista, crteži ovih mesta, filmovi i pristup njima kroz QR kodove, prvi put su izloženi 2013. u Akademie Graz, u Gracu, proširujući izložbu i u javni prostor, postavljajući pomenute kodove na lokacije na koje se referisalo u radu. Krajem 2016. godine, projekat je prikazan i kao unutrašnja instalacija za samostalnu izložbu organizovanu u KunstHalle takođe u Gracu. U aprilu 2015. verzija ove instalacije bila je deo grupne izložbe Wander Lab u MSUV u Novom Sadu. Konačno, We are living in a beautiful wOURld-Austria je prikazana u maju 2018. godine u Savremenoj galeriji u Subotici.
Na poziv galerije Hestia diSTRUKTURA je nastavila svoje istraživanje u drugačijem kontekstu: migracija umetnika, intelektualaca i drugih, iz prestonica Latinske Amerike u Barselonu i Madrid u Španiji. Ova promena smera, od Istoka ka Zapadu- od bivše Jugoslavije ka Austriji je sada postala tranzit od Zapada ka Istoku- od Južne Amerike ka Španiji- i omogućava nam da razmišljamo duž tih puteva, u tim linijama kretanja, povezanim sa našim identitetima i emocijama, a ponajviše o procesima uspostavljanja modela življenja u kontekstu globalizacije postkolonijalnog kapitalizma.[1] Ove promene nisu jednostavne. One referišu na kolonijalnu i imperijalističku prošlost, ali takođe i na postkolonijalnu realnost u kojoj se teritorije takozvanog Globalnog juga nalaze. Geopolitički koncept koji odražava stvarnosti i sličnosti, ali takođe i prilike i izazove koji ujedinjuju oblasti Latinske Amerike i Istočne Evrope, kao i Azije i Bliskog istoka- je veza koja je primaran fokus Hestije i projekata koje razvija.
Istorijske kartografije: kolonijalna i neo-kolonijalna migrantska kretanja
Mi nismo toliko daleko. 12.620 km koji fizički dele Santjago de Čile, najdalji grad ovog projekta, i Beograd, mogu biti povezani u vremenu osvajanjima koja nisu tako udaljena. Sa materijalističke tačke gledišta, povezani su delovanjima i strategijama moći koje imaju istu nameru: teritorijalna kontrola i njen proizvodni i potrošački kapacitet, kao i strateška geografija u cilju održavanja ekonomske kontrole.
U Novom veku postojalo je prezime koje je spajalo ovu moć: Habzburzi. To je ista linija kraljeva Španskog carstva, koji su preuzeli kontrolu na nedavno osvojenom Amerikom (od Karla V). To je takođe i ime vladara nekadašnjeg Svetog rimskog carstva nemačkog naroda, i kasnije Austrougarske, ključnih figura u mnogim poteškoćama centra Evrope i njihove borbe za Istok. Njegova istorija, pod zastavom, progresa neodvojiva je od bitki, masakara i kretanja i selidbi ljudi u svetu još od XVI veka. Romantičarski pokreti emancipacije i nacionalizam koji su se pojavili u XIX veku, pobunili su se protiv struktura koje su sami stvorili (u Španiji protiv strukture koju su Burbonci nasledili od 1700.)
Na ovaj način, možemo pratiti hronologiju ekonomskih interesa kontrole nad izvorima bogatstva, proizvodnje i potrošnje- prerušene pod različitim maskama nezavisnosti, nacionalizma, religije ili ekspanzije modela demokratije- kao motivaciju za države, stare i nove, revolucije elite sve do sovjetske ekspanzije, različite puteve evropskih migracija oko Prvog i Drugog svetskog rata, kolonijalnu ekonomsku kontrolu Evrope i Sjedinjenih Američkih Država, politiku pro-evropskog pomirenja na Balkanu ili dolazak španskih korporacija u Latinsku Ameriku.
Danas se može polemisati da se još uvek krećemo kolonijalnim putevima, uprkos prividnim senzacijama mobilnosti i slobode, koje nematerijalni rad može da ponudi, gde je metropola, danas deteritorijalizovana, zapravo glavni grad. To je tranzit koji počinje da osvaja nove svetove (tržišta) od centra ka periferijama. Ili kao u slučaju ovog projekta, onaj proizveden u potrazi za mogućnostima onih iz perifernih i/ili kolonijalnih oblasti, istorijski pretučenih, i sa različitim, nasilnim životnim uslovima. Na ovaj način ne prestaje priliv ljudi u drevne metropole, koje su još uvek privilegovane po svojoj političko-ekonomskoj strukturi.
Grad kao pozornica
Ako postoji zajednička scena za sve protagoniste ove velike istorije, ona bi imala morfologiju Modernog grada.
Hajde da vizuelizujemo.
Beograd sa svojim nasleđem francuskog modela grada i autrijskim palatama, u kombinaciji sa tragovima otomanskog modela i komunističkog progresa, danas svedoči podizanju solitera koje grade investitori sa Bliskog istoka, dok se u njemu istovremeno nalaze i ostaci NATO bombardovanja iz 1999. Procenjeno je da oko 12.000 mladih napusti zemlju svake godine, što je pozicionira na pretposlednje mesto na listi koja meri « mogućnost zadržavanja talenata «[2] Prema Ujedinjenim Nacijama, u 2011.godini migracija iz Srbije je iznosila 313.411 stanovnika, od čega je 22% pronašlo prebivalište u Austriji.[3]
Grac je bio habzburška rezidencija od XIV do XVII veka. Okupiran od strane Napoleona i bombardovan tokom Drugog svetskog rata, svojim palatama i vilama uspeo je da očuva barokni pečat. Danas je poznat po univerzitetu i kulturnim manifestacijama, koje su obezbedile nove strukture gradu, kao što je Murisenl, auditorijum na sredini reke Mure. Oko 7% populacije dolazi iz zemalja bivše Jugoslavije.[4]
Madrid, prestonica kraljevstva i sedište političke moći, kolonizatorska metropola. Njegov položaj suda i/ili prestonice ga je učinio prijemčivim za ljude sa svih strani sveta. Njegov institucionalni i ekonomski razvoj može se pratiti u istorijskom centru kroz palate, trgove, crkve. Preuređen je početkom prošlog veka, proširivši se na uzastopne avenije gde su se smestile velike korporacije i banke. Od sredine XX veka veliki broj novih delova grada je iznikao da bi primili različite talase migracije. 2018. 43% populacije grada je latinoameričkog porekla.[5]
Barselona je simbol grada-brenda, spektakularan u svom izgledu i sa turističkom industrijom u porastu, što je pretvorilo centar grada u veliki zabavni park kulture. Mnogi veliki amblemi ovakve situacije mogu da se pronađu u modernističkoj arhitekturi s početka XX veka. Zgrade koje su podignute zahvaljujući industrijskom razvoju i trgovini koja se razvijala uz drevne kolonije. U drugoj polovini XX veka nastavila je svoj razvoj, i rasla zahvaljujući poplavi unutrašnjih migracija i urbanim planovima i nekretninama koji su se razvijali od Olimpijskih igara 1992. Danas, više od 92.000 osoba latinoameričkog porekla je registrovano u popisu.[6]
Španija je implementirala specifičan model urbanizacije u svojim američkim kolonijama. Mnogo istorijskih centara sačuvalo je istu oktogonalnu mrežu distribucije, sa centralnim trgom na kom su smešteni crkva i sedište Vlade. U XIX veku, sa uzastopnim proglašenjem nezavisnosti između 1811. i 1898. većina novih vlada je izgradilo Palate Vlade u glavnim gradovima, i prateći modernističke tendencije otvorili su nove avenije i ministarstva, bolnice, akademije, pozorišta i muzeje. Ako se fokusiramo na gradove porekla ljudi intervjuisanih za projekat diSTRUKTURE možemo da vidimo ovu evoluciju u gradovima Santijago de Čile, Bogoti, Kitou, San Hozeu i posebno u Buenos Ajresu, koji je do 40-ih uživao u velikom izobilju koje je vratilo veličanstvenost gradu. U kasnijim dekadama XX veka, istakla se serija projekata internacionalnog stil arhitekture. Brazilija je najznačajniji takav primer s obzirom na to da je podignuta od nule, ali je ova ideja napretka prisutna i prepoznatljiva i u arhitekturi Karakaša.
Danas, ista problematika nasilja, klasnih razlika i marginalizacije na različitim nivoima, nasleđena od kolonijalnih i postkolonijalnih ekonomskih sistema, može da se prepozna u svakom od ovih gradova, kao i njihov uticaj na lokalnu vladu i ekonomiju, bilo kao opozicija ili upad. Prema studiji Latin American city: theories, actors and conflicts : “Fenomen marginalnosti biće izdvojen kao osnovna prepreka razvoju. S jedne strane, svedočenje nesposobnosti ekonomskog sistema regiona da inkorporira proizvodne procese onih grupa koje se bave oblastima ograničene kvalifikacije i produktivnosti (Rosenblüth, 1968.). S druge strane, zbog političke pretnje koju je predstavljala popularna lavina na gradove, sa različitim opasnim oblicima življenja (slamovi u Limi, callampas u Santjago de Čile, favele u Rio de Žaneiru, villas miseria u Buenos Ajresu itd. (Rios, 1960.)[7] Ideja razvoja koja nije ostavila nikakav dokaz vernakularne arhitekture ili inkluzije drugih načina življenja.
Procesi gostoljubivosti, neprijateljstva i deteritorijalizacije
Ovo umetničko istraživanje započelo je u Argentini, Čileu, Kolumbiji, Kostariki, Ekvadoru i Venecueli i kretalo se ka Barseloni i Madridu: motivi se razlikuju od potrage za novim poslovnim prilikama do ljubavnih veza. Ali, u svima njima, birokratija i granice u pogledu dobijanja statusa legalnog građanina i mogućnosti da žive i rade produktivne, unosne poslove su slične.
1995.i 1996. francuski filozof Žak Derida držao je “Seminar o gostoljubivosti” na Institutu za savremeno izdavaštvo (Institute Mémoires de l´Édition Contemporaine )blizu Kana (Kalvados) u Francuskoj[8]. Tokom ovih predavanja on je napravio razliku između “zakona gostoprimljivosti” i “zakona gostoprimljivosti” u množini. Prvo se odnosi na univerzalni koncept bezuslovnog prihvatanja drugog u sopstvenom prostoru. S druge strane, zakoni, u množini, odnose se na specifične političke mere koje definišu zakon i kultura društva i države. Derida u oba prepoznaje uslov i dvosmislenost u odnosima moći između onog ko prihvata i onog koji je prihvaćen, što se gotovo uvek ogleda kroz strukturu dominacije i podređenosti. Domaćin uvek posmatra gosta kao nekog ko je tu privremeno, u tranzitu, nekog ko je došao i ko će u određenom trenutku da ode. Biopolitika, posebno migracioni propisi odražavaju ovo stanje privremenosti i nemogućnosti uspostavljanja harmonične veze sa Drugim, stvarajući tako neprijateljsku atmosferu.
Istorijski posmatrano, odnosi između domaćina i gosta (pozvanog ili nametnutog) zasnovani su na različitim primerima kolonijalizma kroz implicitno ili eksplicitno nasilje. Danas neprijateljstvo ne sprovode samo država i njena politika. U današnjici, ono pogađa biće u svom celokupnom stanju tranzita, ne samo fizičkom. Berardo Bifo, italijanski teoretičar se osvrće na to u svojoj poslednjoj knjizi: “Kulturalni nomadizam je postao generalizovan u doba globalizacije tržišta rada i medijske komunikacije. Nomadizam, proces kulturalne deteritorijalizacije i njegov posledičan psihološki egzil, duboko pogađa percepciju sopstva, “Ja”, stvarajući psihološku patnju dok istovremeno otvara nove perspektive imaginacije i identifikacije.”[9] U tome leži izazov: u našoj sposobnosti da ponovo izmislimo sebe i izgradimo nove forme odnosa sa Drugim, a samim tim i nove oblike življenja.
Lutanje kao otpor
Milica Milićević i Milan Bosnić su pozvali Patricija, Franciska, Andreu, Roja, Dajanu i Ajmaru, da nam pokažu svoje puteve, svoja kretanja. Oni nam pričaju o konceptu adaptacije, ali takođe, zajedno sa njima pratimo i rutu kroz emotivna mesta koja konstituišu postojanje. Šest protagonista elaborira kartografiju želje[10] ovih mikro-politika koje su ujedinjene u mešavini kompromisa, otpora, utočišta, bekstva, dokolice i/ili posla, i koje su odraz karakterističnih i različitih načina života svakog od njih. Identifikovanje njihove moći da se odupru je prvi korak u stvaranju “novih perspektiva imaginacije i identifikacije” koje predlaže Bifo.
Da bi ovo postigli diSTRUKTURA je od situacionista prisvojila strategije psihogeografskih mapa. Među ostalim iskustvima koje je Situacionistička Internacionala razvijala između 1957. i 1972.[11] godine, situacionisti su predložili i proces dekontekstualizacije i rekontekstualizacije urbane niti kroz situacije diskontinuiteta i subjektivne doživljaje u gradu. Na ovaj način nastaju, psihogeografske mape kao Guide psycogéographique de Paris. Discours sur les passions de l´amour i Naked City koje je 1957. realizovao Gi Debor, gde je plan grada rekonstruisan u autonomne zone povezane strelicama ili vektorima želje. Dijagram predstavlja lutanje ostvareno u svakoj prilici : slobodna vežba lutanja bez pravca i bez produktivnog cilja u gradu. Ova akcija ima za cilj da se izbegnu putevi nametnuti od strane buržoaskog modela života, njegove političke, i ekonomske kapitalističke strukture, posredstvom autonomije individualnog.[12]
U mapama WE from in betWEen prošetaćemo od Parque del Oeste (Zapadnog parka) u Madridu do plaža na istoku Barselone. Priče, opisi, fotografije, crteži i frotaži gradskih površina, u materijalnom smislu dokumentuju mogućnosti bekstva, pokušaje adaptacije i modele preživljavanja u globalnom, kognitivnom kapitalizmu, od preuzimanja modela do njegove direktne opozicije. To čine na način koji naglašava materijalnost samog stvaranja u tragovima koje su izveli umetnici, i fotografijama snimljenim tokom njihovih šetnji. Zajedno uz reči imigranata, konstruiše se pejzaž, ne racionalan, već onaj koji se odnosi na uspomene i emocionalno iskustvo. Kolaž koji, kao i roman “Školice”[13] Julia Kortazara, može da se čita po poglavljima na dva drugačija načina: tradicionalnim redom- koje argentinski pisac zove “sa druge strane” ili lutajući, preskačući sa dela na deo- što naziva čitanje “sa različitih strana”.
Misao za akciju
Prepoznatljiv znak koji se ponavlja u svim pričama We from in betWEen je aluzija na različite načine govora. Čak iako je zajednički jezik za sve španski, svako od intervjuisanih pominje neko svoje iskustvo različitosti, zbog akcenta ili upotrebe reči ili izraza koji nisu uobičajeni za Iberijsko poluostrvo. Ovaj “govor” je definisan kao “lingvistički sistem regije, lokaliteta ili zajednice, sa jedinstvenim karakteristikama unutar drugog znatno šireg sistema.” a takođe kao i “individualni čin upotrebe jezika, koji nastaje biranjem određenih znakova koje jezik nudi, kroz usmenu ili pismenu realizaciju.”[14] Zbog toga se stvara razlika.
Pančo je srdačan nadimak za Franciska u Americi. To je ime čileanskog kustosa i istraživača, intervjuisanog u Madridu. U svom videu on ističe kako je “pančo” prezrivo ime za Južnoamerikance. Ova činjenica i drugi aspekti kao što su boja njegove kože, njegov akcenat, njegov seksualni identitet čine da se on oglašava sa marginalizovane pozicije. U tom smislu, Francisko se osvrće na teorijski tekst How to live together?[15] Rolana Barta u kojoj on izlaže analizu “idioritmičke zajednice”. U tekstu “idioritam” je definisan kao marginalnost, što je upravo mesto gde bi mogao da se javi novi način zajedničkog života. Bart predlaže da se razmisli o zajednici koja emocionalno naseljuje prostore, i to emocijom zasnovanom na singularnosti, subjektivnosti u svim njenim nijansama i različitim stepenima. Kao takva je opozicija svakoj strukturi moći. Upravo u ovom konceptu se može otvoriti mogućnost za akciju, za bilo koji novi način života: nova zajednica aktivna u uključivanju svih razlika.
Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo je nezavisna kustoskinja
koja živi i radi u Barseloni, Španija.
[1] Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachussets, 2000
[2] The World Economic Forum’s 2016/17 Global Competitiveness Report. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2016-2017-1 (last accessed 21/08/2018).
[3] Mirjana Bobić, Milica Vesković Anđelković, Vlasta Kokotović Kanazir, STUDY ON EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL MIGRATION OF SERBIA’S CITIZENS With Particular Focus On Youth, International Organization for Migration, Belgrade, 2016.
[4] Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graz
[5] Ayuntamiento de Madrid: https://www.madrid.es/portales/munimadrid/es/Inicio/El-Ayuntamiento/Estadistica/Areas-de-informacion-estadistica/Demografia-y-poblacion/Poblacion-extranjera/Poblacion-extranjera-en-la-ciudad-de-Madrid/?
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[6] Ayuntamiento de Barcelona: http://www.bcn.cat/estadistica/castella/dades/index.htm
[7] Jajamovich, Guillermo & Cortés, Alexis & Arango Lopez, Diego, “Ciudad latinoamericana: teorías, actores y conflictos”, URBANA: Revista Eletrônica do Centro Interdisciplinar de Estudos sobre a Cidade. 8. 1. 10.20396/urbana.v8i3.8647507. 2016
[8] Jacques Derrida, Anne Dufourmantelle, Anne Dufourmantelle invite Jacques Derrida à repondre De l´hospitalité, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1997
[9] Franco Bifo Berardo, And: Phenomenology of the End, Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents, Los Angeles, 2015.
[10] Suely Rolnik, Felix Guattari, Micropolítica. Cartografias del deseo, Traficantes de sueños, Madrid, 2006.
[11] Guy Debord, “Théorie de la Dérive”, Les Levres Nues nº9, Anvers, 1956; Guy Debord, La societé du spectacle, Buchet, Paris, 1967.
[12] Libero Andreotti, Xavier Costa, Libero Andreotti, Giorgio Agamben, Mirella Bandini, Constant, Jean-Clarence Lambert, Thomas Y. Levin, Thomas McDonough, Situacionistas. Arte, Política, Urbanismo, MACBA / Actar, Barcelona, 1996
[13] Julio Cortazar, Rayuela, Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires,1963.
[14] Diccionario de la Real Academia de la Lengua Española, versión online: http://dle.rae.es/srv/fetch?id=JvnVDMt (last accessed 20/08/2018)
[15] Roland Barthes, Comment vivre ensemble. Simulations romanesques de quelques espaces quotidiens, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2002.