APOLOGOSCAPES* (COUNTER)PRODUCTIVITIES OF APOLOGIES IN POLITICS, ART, AND INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURES

The cross-disciplinary seminar Seminar_Apologoscapes(Counter)productivities of apologies in politics, art, and institutional infrastructures focuses on exploring the potentialities and pitfalls of apologies in various socio-political and cultural contexts. The pressing questions asked by the seminar will pursue the reasons for different approaches towards apology (and its absence or rejection) in their collective and public dimensions.

Seminar’s programme:                                                                                                                    

9:30–9:45 Welcome and introduction by co-curators and -organiseres:

Gal Kirn (University Ljubljana), Katja Kobolt (ZRC SAZU) and Suzana Milevska (independent researcher, Skopje)                                                                                             

9:45–11:45 (Infra)Structural obliteration and institutional neglect

Position paper and moderation: Katja Kobolt (Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, ZRC SAZU)

Lilijana Burcar (Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana): Festival Kurirček (Partizan Courier), Lost and squandered heritage of antifascism and unique children’s cultural landscape

Sanja Petrović Todosijević (Institute for Recent History of Serbia, Belgrade): When monuments fall silent. The Boško Buha Memorial Complex: The Dismissed Symbol of marginalised policy of Education and Upbringing of Socialist Yugoslavia 

Martin Pogačar (Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, ZRC SAZU): Railways and dreams: What happened to the infrastructures of socialist childhood                                                                                                                                                            

12:00–14:00 After erasure and cancelling: Reconciling and impossibility of apology     

Position paper and moderation: Gal Kirn (Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana)                                       

Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc (Institute of Culture and Memory Studies ZRC SAZU): Agency in addressing ‘the erasure’ (izbris) in Slovenian public sphere: acknowledgment, redress, apology … by whom?  

Vuk Ćosić (artist): Ć – Monument to the Deleted by Vuk Ćosić with Aleksandar Vujović & Irena Wölle

Simon Hajdini (Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana): You are Unforgiven – Apology in the Age of Cancel Culture                                                                                                                                                                    

15:00–17:30 Performative speech acts of apology in the arts and culture

Position paper and moderation: Suzana Milevska (independent art theorist and curator)

Seraphine Appel (Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona/University College London): Temporal manoeuvres of apologetic settler colonialism

Michaela Bstieler (University of Innsbruck): Dwelling on Desolation

Erëmirë Krasniqi (Oral History Kosovo): Reconciliation of Blood Feuds Campaign 1990-1991

Rosalyn D’ Mello (independent writer and art critic): Sorry I’m late: The violence of chrononormativity

17:45–18:30 Q&A and concluding remarks

The seminar will take place parallel to the exhibition Sorry, the Hardest Word?, curated by Suzana Milevska and with artists Tal Adler, Marie Blum, Noa Gur, Sasha Huber, Tadej Pogačar, Sam Richardson, Merete Røstad, Simona Schneider, Sašo Stanojkoviḱ, Esther Strauß, and Virgil B/G at P74 Gallery, Ljubljana.

07.11. (opening 6 pm) – 31.12.2023

Trg prekomorskih brigad 1, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia                                                         

Organisation:

The host of the seminar is the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies ZRC SAZU (project Picturing Modernist Future: Women Illustrators and Childhood Conceptions in Socialist Yugoslavia, funded by the European Union – Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101024090). 

The partner institutions: Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana (project Protests, artistic practices and culture of memory in the post-Yugoslav context, funded by ARRS J6-3144), and P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute / P74 Gallery, Ljubljana.

Seminar's program abstracts and bios.

*The term ‘apologoscapes’ has been coined by Suzana Milevska in reference to five other ‘scapes’ suggested by Arjun Appadurai.