For decades in the European peripheries we have ignored considerations about our entanglement in the histories of colonialism and de-colonization that shaped the public discourse in both the Global South and the Global North. The East Central European (ECE) and South East European (SEE) states have for the most part not participated directly in colonization efforts and have, through an anti-imperialist stance during different implementations of state socialisms, expressed a declarative anti-colonial position. Nevertheless, the European peripheries, historically subordinated to different empires until the beginning of the 20th century, have been affected by the history of colonialism and coloniality. As a result, they have been part of the global relations created through this history.

Artists: Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán, Anna Dasović, Doplgenger, Ferenc Gróf, Christian Guerematchi, Minna Henriksson, Ľuboš Kotlár & Robert Gabris, Kvet Nguyen, Daniela Ortiz

Curated by Iva Kovač

Free shuttle bus

Vienna – Bratislava – Vienna

On Thursday, 11 April 2024, ERSTE Foundation is organising a shuttle bus from Vienna to Bratislava on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition Looking a — way.

Meeting point & schedule:
Erste Campus, Karl-Popper-Straße 4, 1100 Vienna

• 16.45 Boarding
• 17.00 Departure on time
• 18.30 Welcome at tranzit.sk by Judit Angel, director tranzit.sk
• 19.00 Opening of the exhibition Looking a — way with guided tour by curator Iva Kovač
• 20.30 approx. departure from Bratislava to Vienna
• 21.30 approx. arrival back in Vienna at Erste Campus

Registration closes on 8 April 2024. Admission free. Please bring your passport or ID card for the trip! 
Register here!

For information please contact heide.wihrheim@erstestiftung.org

The works in the exhibition approach the question of othering and de-colonization, both from the need to decolonize the countries that constitute what is called the ECE and SEE, many of which were historically part of European empires that prospered through exploitation enabled by colonial expansion. It is also important to note that these peripheries have, in different ways, experienced othering by the West, which was strikingly obvious in the 1990s during the dissolution of the former socialist system.

The artistic projects presented within the exhibition Looking a — way: Othering (in)(of) the (semi)periphery further a comparative view of de-colonization in the East Central European and South East European countries. Works by Kvet Nguyen, Christian Guerematchi, and the artist duo Doplgenger engage with the less known anti-colonial histories of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Anna Dasović’s artistic research investigates the gradation of othering and its genocidal consequences in the case of the Yugoslav wars, while Anca Benera, and Arnold Estefán relate the political conditions that enabled the rise of Fascism with its lingering threat today. The works by Ferenc Gróf, Daniela Ortiz, Minna Henriksson, Ľuboš Kotlár, and Robert Gabris pursue the history of the development of racist ideology and its contemporaneity as an oppressive tool used against those designated as other. 

Iva Kovač, a visual artist at Fokus Grupa since 2012, has worked as a program director of the City of Women Association in Ljubljana since 2021. She was the curator at PM Gallery in Zagreb from 2010 to 2012 and SIZ Gallery in Rijeka from 2013 to 2015. From 2017 to 2021, she was the curator at the GSG art space in Rijeka, where she initiated and (co)edited the first three issues of GSG magazine for Contemporary Art and Social Questions, published, also as an online edition @ArtsEverywhere.ca

Iva works at the intersection of feminist and decolonial curatorial and artistic research. She has curated the South in Us program focused on decolonizing SEE Europe as part of the City of Women Festival in Ljubljana in 2022 and the exhibition entitled Archeology of Resistance: Corrective for the Future in 2023. She co-edited the third issue of GSG magazine on the Othering in/of the Periphery. As Fokus Grupa, she published an article entitled A Room with a Landscape: Vedutas from the palace of the Privileged Company of Trieste and Rijeka in ARTMargins journal, which looks at the colonial history of the European periphery.  She also curated the Sugar Everywhere conference in the framework of the Mine, Yours, Ours festival by Drugo more in Rijeka.

Looking a — way is presented in collaboration with the City of Women Association, Ljubljana.

Cover picture: Christian Guerematchi: Crni Tito – Blaq Tito Addressing the Parliament of Ghosts, 2023, one-channel video, video still