Conflict Zones
a series of online talks

Conflict Zones is a series of online conversations around conflicts of different kinds, with various degrees of visibility and scope. Conflict Zones takes place every fortnight on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Click on this link to follow the conversation on Zoom. No registration required.

In the series, we exchange thoughts and personal stories with artists and cultural workers who are facing a precarious situation as a result of different kinds of conflict: military and political but also legal, ethical, or other; at a workplace, at home, or in exile. The series gives platform and visibility to the practices that might be underexposed or even under attack at the given moment. During intimate talks, we are trying to unveil different layers of conflict and foreground how they disrupt artistic practices and daily lives alike. We want to listen. Truly listen.

We do not claim to be objective nor comprehensive. The making of the series is inspired by the improv acting methodology that lies at the core of Jester. We always start from a speaker we have a connection with, as an organisation and as people, and from a subject with a sense of urgency. From there, we see how the programme will unfold. 

Due to the current war in Ukraine, the topic of conflict became even more imminent in the general programme ideas for Jester. Departing from conversations with Ukrainian curator Alexandra Tryanova, our intern, and some of the Ukrainian artists with whom we have worked in the past, formed the catalyst for this initiative. Based on that, we decided to address this urgency first within our series. This is followed by all kinds of ‘conflicts’ that are linked to the organisation; materials that conflict with each other, neighbours who have to get used to a new art building in their backyard, or a court case about ownership. 

Conflict Zones 06 – moderated by Alexandra Tryanova & Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg

Oleksandr Sirous is a sound and media artist. Recently Oleksandr has turned more and more to the culture of video games and various game mechanics and new rules of interaction. With the aim of finding new approaches at the intersection of the already established approaches in media art and video games.

Sirous studied painting and graphics in Kharkiv. In 2018, he was the curator of the new media art course at @hudpromloft and the Kharkiv Academy of Visual Arts. In 2019, he taught the 3D programming course at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts and curated/resided at @carbonartcentre in Kyiv and also a member at @photinusstudio . He was nominated this year for the @pinchukartcentre Prize.

(text by MORPHO residency program)

Conflict Zones 05 – moderated by Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg

Alexandra Tryanova is an Odesa-born, Antwerp-based independent curator. She works with topics of recreation, Eastern European conceptual art, gender, and institutional critique. In a frame of the 5th Odessa Biennial of Contemporary Art (2017), she has established a non-production site residency Kunsthalle Lustdorf that continues its work as an independent artistic and curatorial association for open practices and technologies in a suburb of Odessa. Between 2018 and 2019, she worked at the Museum of Odessa Modern Art as a curator, where she curated a list of exhibitions, among which (un)named by Nikita Kadan and In memoriam exhibition of Stas Volyazlovsky. As a junior curator of the PinchukArtCentre, Alexandra has co-curated the exhibition Ain’t nobody’s business (2019) and curated the exhibition of the 20 artists shortlisted for the PinchukArtCentre Prize (2020). Then In 2021, she continued her studies in Belgium at Curatorial studies at KASK (Ghent) and now collaborates with Jester (Genk) in the frame of the series Conflict Zones.

Conflict Zones 04 – moderated by Alexandra Tryanova

Ute Kilter is a performer, actress, TV maker, and art critic based in Odessa, Ukraine. In 1992, with her collaborator Viktor Malyarenko she started the TV program “Situation Ute, ” an essayistic contemporary art travel digest. “Situation Ute” was broadcasted on Odesa TV channel for 27 years, proposing an overview both of European art events in Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, and in Ukraine to a local audience. Ute Kilter starred in many films by internationally known Ukrainian film director Kira Muratova, including Chekhov’s Motifs, The Tuner and Eternal Return.

Conflict Zones 03 -moderated by Alexandra Tryanova

Conflict Zones 02 – moderated by Alexandra Tryanova

Our second guest was Nadia Parfan, a Ukrainian film director, producer and curator. Her student film “Reve ta Stohne on Tour” received a special mention at DocudaysUA and her last film, “Heat Singers”, was premiered at Visions du Reel cinema festival and was selected to several other international film festivals. Nadia is the co-founder of the Festival of Film and Urbanism 86, which took place in Slavutych from 2014 to 2018.

She is also the author of the idea and creative producer of the documentary project MyStreetFilmsUkraine, in which Ukrainian directors have created and released 49 short films. In 2018, Nadia together with producer Ilya Gladstein has founded the production company Phalanstery Films. In January 2020 Nadia launched a streaming platform Takflix.com which provides legal access to Ukrainian films. 

Conflict Zones 01 – moderated by Alexandra Tryanova

Our first guest was culturologist Olha Honchar (UA), a project and communications, anti-crisis manager. She is the director of the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes ‘Territory of Terror’ in Lviv en researches the features of PR, cultural and museum management in Ukraine. Besides, she is responsible for the communication of the projects ‘Cultural diplomacy between the regions of Ukraine’ in the frontline and liberated cities of Donetsk and Luhansk regions: ‘The museum is open for renovation’,  the expedition ‘HERE AND THERE’ and others.

At the Luhansk Regional Museum in Starobilsk, Honchar is Co-curator of the experimental exposition of the Anti-Terrorist Operation. She is the initiator of the ‘Museum Crisis Center’ and the ‘Ambulance Museum project’, which emerged the first days of the Russian war against Ukraine.

How to support the Museum Crisis Center?

For payments in euro:

BENEFICIARY: ngo insha osvita
Id. Code: 40289892
IBAN: UA933355480000026008053635051
Legal address: Lva Zhemchuzhnikova st. 5, appt. 6, 79053, Lviv, Ukraine
BANK OF BENEFICIARY: PRIVATBANK, 1D HRUSHEVSKOHO STR., KYIV, 01001, UKRAINE
SWIFT: PBANUA2X
CORRESPONDENT BANK: J.P.MORGAN AG, FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY
Details of payment: charity donation for “Museum Crisis Center”

The Museum Crisis Center is a grassroots initiative of Olha Honchar, a culturologist and director of the Lviv Territory of Terror Museum, which is implemented in partnership with Insha Osvita and the New Museum NGO. The Museum Crisis Center has already been supported by the European Commission (within the Strength Here project), the Kyiv Biennale (as part of its own urgent initiative to support the art community), the PinchukArtCentre, the German MitOst e.V., and a number of private patrons.

The Museum Crisis Center aims to provide financial, organizational and human support to small regional museums and their teams in times of crisis. While the state saves the funds of large national museums in the first place, local museum institutions, which are a vascular network of culture, are often overlooked. The Museum Crisis Center sees value in every local museum institution and in the people who preserve that knowledge and collection.

The Museum Crisis Center is an initiative that will be relevant in the postwar period as well. Not only to restore the network of local museums, return collections, restore exhibits and inventory, but also as a tool of mutual assistance in various crisis situations. The Museum Crisis Center is an association that will launch a number of projects, the first of which is Ambulance museum initiative.

For partnerships and support, or other forms of payment, write to olha.honchar@gmail.com, be_strong@insha-osvita.org

Jester
our new organisation

Be Courageous

Listen. Truly Listen

Be accepting

Don’t Be Clever

Trust – Others, Yourself and the Unknown

Be (in the) present

It is with great pride and excitement that we announce the merger of two well-known organisations for contemporary art, FLACC and CIAP, into a new organisation which we have chosen to name Jester*. You can find us here: www.jester.be

Over the past few years, the teams at FLACC and CIAP have been working hard to find a common direction that preserves the special qualities of both organisations in Jester. In this way, the strong solo exhibitions, editions and publications for which CIAP is known, together with the deepening of particular visions or the possibilities for material experimentation, which lie at the core of FLACC, will be brought to the fore through the new programming.

CIAP has traditionally been a members’ organisation. Jester embraces its members, makes room for member projects and aims to further serve increasingly more members from its future location in Genk. FLACC has a tradition of accommodating artists in Genk at different times so that they may work with proper focus and attention. This residency operation will also be retained in Jester.

© 51N4E

Soon Jester will be working from its own home, built on the large former mining site C-mine. This is a hub where various global transformation processes and their economic, ecological and demographic consequences manifest themselves and become tangible through art and culture. Through its stimulating, generous and critical presence, Jester aims to make a significant contribution to the creation of a locally anchored, vibrant cultural oasis, with national and international reach.

Determined to create a distinctive and singular experience, the team at Jester decided to start from a number of basic concepts found in improvisational theatre. These will provide us and everyone involved in the programme with the opportunity to respond to current events or changes at any given time. Improv makes it possible to create a story whose direction and outcome are not always determined.

The team at Jester invites you to join them in Genk. In the course of 2022, you will be able to enjoy the programme that emerged from FLACC and CIAP’s ongoing programming. From 2023 onwards, Jester invites you to embrace the unknown. Are you curious to see how we work towards a new story? Join us as a member and follow us via our newsletter or social media!

*Jester is a professional joker at a medieval court, who is allowed to hold up a mirror to the monarchs. The stories jester tells are laced with humour, yet often have a serious message at their core.

Emptor
Assembly of Practice / Gathering wood

5 p.m – 7 p.m.

this event is held in English

Assembly of practice and public moment: What does it mean to own?

On April 14th Emptor organises its first Assembly of Practice, a moment of collective reflection, and a public moment at C-mine, Genk. Emptor is an artistic research on the ecology of artistic practice and departs from the question: How can we practice ‘property’ for a sustainable visual arts field? Artists involved so far are Kobe Matthys (Agency/Agentschap/Agence), Katya Ev, Ciel Grommen & Maximiliaan Royakkers, Grace Ndiritu, Vermeir & Heiremans, and Clémentine Vaultier and reflection partners a.pass (Brussels), BUDA (Kortrijk), Jester (Genk), Kunsthal Gent. During the day, Emptor invites a group of engaged artists, art workers, and institutions to reflect on the challenges our current interpretation of property imposes, within the artistic field and beyond.

Public moment 5 – 7 p.m.

Sprokkelen (Gathering wood)

In an attempt to publish and perform our ongoing exchange on practising property, Emptor invites you to a public moment of collective wood-gathering as a way to actively participate in the reflection on the notion of property and how it influences our use of common resources and art.

Introduced by Emptor dramaturg Steyn Bergs and Ciel Grommen & Maximiliaan Royakkers, the wood gathering is followed by a keynote on open source cartography by Atelier Cartographique Brussels and a collective session of cartographing our findings.

Meanwhile, Clementine Vaultier will make sure we don’t get hungry, taking from her research on ways we raise, use, and diffuse warmth.

Location: daybed in the field behind LUCA School of Arts
– follow Barenzaallaan until the end and turn left,
– find us on Google Maps,
– join a group departing from C-mine visitors desk at 5 p.m.