marta.popivoda

/TkH residency at Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris/

The project is conceived as a long-term initiative, the goal of which is to empower contemporary performing arts scene towards critical (self-) reflection, self-organization and alternative ways of knowledge production and sharing.
It will operate by connecting a local (Paris) and international scene, communities which are testing their openness, curiosity and ability to transform themselves on the basis of common goals and objectives. The following conditions frame the program:
1)    it will take place in Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers;
2)    involve members and associates of TkH, whose departure will be to mediate their experience of theoretical activism specific to the context of ex-Yugoslavia;
3)    include collaborators from France, Paris and performance local community and international scene.

The project has a strong background in our previous activities, and can be considered as an extension of TkH’s theoretical activism, by which we helped the transformation of the independent scene of performing and other arts in Belgrade from a “theory-phobic” into a pro-theoretical one.

In terms of activities, HOW TO DO THINGS BY THEORY will be realized as a research and public program on regular basis, i.e. involving visibility and participation of the actors from the local community and of a visiting audience as well. This regularity is meant to secure a vivid, reliable, albeit not imposing, praxis of thought-action – the actors may vary but the imperative is that the practices consistently develop. The program will comprise various formats of which the most recognizable are: theoretical lectures, cultural policy discussions, a practice of mobilizing community through self-organized film screenings, reading groups, publications, research in documentation mediums, etc. The plan is to include local artists and theorists as active participants of the platform as much as possible, so that over the time the role of TkH in the platform would “fade out”, while the local agency would gradually take over the program. All the programs should be kept small-scale and low-budget. In that way, they can have a follow-up in various contexts and under various production circumstances.
The mission of this theoretically activist platform is not to resolve social problems but to animate the local contemporary art scene to become more aware of its social context and production conditions, to re-think its own position, place, practice and discourse and, above all, to be more active in transforming a feeling of “cannot” – within the limits or horizons of possibility are – into its own, self-organized “can”. We are looking for staging scenes of dissensus (mésentente) in the sense of Jacques Rancière, that will performatively reconfigure debates and orders of the possible.

Team of the project: Ana Vujanović, Bojana Cvejić, Marta Popivoda, Bojan Djordjev, and Siniša Ilić.

Timetable: the project will be realized over three years (2010-2012), in a few intensive blocks each year. Between the blocks, we will keep the continuity of the project and help in maintaining activities by occasional visits to Les Laboratoires, via internet, etc.

Texts written during TkH residency at Les Laboratoires are regularly published on their blog www.howtodothingsbytheory.info

Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers thank INHA (National Institute for Art History) for their kind support.