COLONIAL WOUND
performance by Karolina Kubik and Tanel Rander
(photos by Creature Live Art festival)
COLONIAL WOUND, SOLIDARITY AND EASTERN EUROPE
discussion in 17.10.2014
UP Gallery, Berlin
COLONIAL WOUND
Documentation of
performance by Karolina Kubik and Tanel Rander, 31st of
May 2014 in Kaunas. 150 plates of mamaliga were symbolically served,
referring to 150 NATO soldiers sent to each Baltic state. Mamaliga is
a cheap East European peasant food, now mostly forgotten, but known
as polenta, through the global marketing of Italian cuisine. Beside
mamaliga, 150 stones were served. This serving was followed by
struggle with car, its Polish registration plate was covered with
military camouflage. The anonymous and militarized civil car was
pushed by Tanel Rander, while Karolina Kubik stopped it with a wooden
stick. Mamaliga, stones and sticks is what we have. We want to
discuss how to use them!
Colonial wound is what
unites Eastern Europe and the former 3rd world. Colonial
wound is what makes a difference between the East and the West. As
coloniality affects people, it affects places. The wound includes
human body and its location, and has different layers.
Layer 1: We come from
Eastern Europe that occurred after the collapse of the Berlin Wall as
a huge post-catastrophic space, facing underdevelopment, radical
reforms, wars, instability.
Layer 2: After 2004, when
most of the Eastern countries joined the EU, this reality was
forgotten. Eastern Europe became “the former East”, a white and
civilized area, acting like Western countries, using foreign labor,
participating in the Western war machine, behaving as superior power
in respect of this Eastern Europe that was left outside the EU.
Layer 3: Since 2014
Eastern Europe is back. Nobody uses the term “the former East”,
when talking about sending NATO troops to the Baltics, Poland and
Romania. War in Ukraine is called as “war in Europe”. The
fear of war and death is now a reality in Eastern Europe.
We
want to raise the following questions:
What
is the task of culture and arts, while the society is being
militarized, while politicians and the elite are turning people
against each other? No doubt that the imperial war machine is
expanding in the East and in the West. What is the task of us,
artists? What should happen in art galleries during such situation?
We
want to develop the culture of solidarity! Eastern Europe has been
spectralized – there are single countries, that don't notice each
other. It is a set of dependancy between the East and the West that
works through singularity. There is war in the place, where we live –
the post-Socialist politicians have failed. The imperialist politics
has failed. How strong is the culture? Are we producing illustrations
for imperialist politics and global coloniality?
Russian
artists – our countries,
your politicians and ours are turning people against each other. And
not only – our countries are being militarized, as if there are
preparations for huge war. What can we do about it? Where is the
cultural response that stands for humanity? Dadaism is not the way
out of it.
