The exhibition “All That We Have in Common”, which is organized in the frame of the 14th European Nomadic Biennial of Contemporary Art – MANIFESTA will be opened for the audience at the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje from the 9th of November till the 20th of February 2023.
The curators of the exhibition are Mustafa Asan, Mo Diener, Mira Gakjina, and Jovanka Popova.
The exhibition will feature works from the following artists: Delaine Le Bas (UK), Ahmet Kadri (North Macedonia), Sead Kazanxhiu (Albania), Robert Gabris and Luboš Kotlár (Slovakia), Roma Jam Session Art Kollective – Mustafa Asan, Mo Diener, Milena Petrovic (North Macedonia / Switzerland / Serbia), Nihad Nino Pusija (Bosnia Herzegovina / Germany), André Jenö Raatzsch (Germany), Emilia Rigova (Slovakia), Ceija Stojka (Austria), Dan Turner (UK), Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (Poland), Durmiš Kazim (North Macedonia).
The Roma community as an organic part of the space in which the Museum of Contemporary Art is located is often the subject of political and social upheaval, misinterpretations, speculations, prejudices, and stereotypes. The aim of the exhibition is to expand the political imagination beyond the heteronormative policies of representation and through shared knowledge by artists from and about the Roma community, to articulate different ways of self-presentation, to centralize and make visible the marginalized narratives of Roma, widely ignored and unreachable.
Through the various concerns regarding the identity policies pursued by Roma artists, the exhibition offers the opportunity to equalize and synchronize different socio-political voices and ways of acting in the public sphere, giving visibility to topics that are excluded from the dominant political discourse or are considered ineligible in relation to ethno-narcissism and national fetishes.
Hence, “All That We Have in Common” refers to works that introduce equivalence between different knowledge and association in joint action and provide a common search for an appropriate solution by linking different types of crisis – systemic violence against Roma and other marginalized communities, identity policy crisis, violence against women, the LGBT community, the migrant crisis etc. It addresses works that show the potential of art as a community and possible viable and positive alternatives for acting on the playing field between the political and the intimate.
The exhibition presents contemporary international authors and analyzes the possibilities for sharing different voices and common concerns in the capitalist local and global context. It also opens the opportunity to ask ourselves – What is the world like when it is experienced, developed, and lived from the perspective of differences?; What and how do we represent, which voices do we prefer over the others, and what do we learn about ourselves through knowing the other? Can the concept of care through different artistic strategies redefine the boundaries between the bodies, the collective structures, the environment, and the different political struggles of the marginalized?
The project is implemented within the framework of the Project Manifesta 14 Pristina – Western Balkans and is co-funded by the European Union. It is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia.
