Thursday, October 27, 2011, 19.00
A discussion about a not so close reality, about a closed society and about how we can manage to discuss arguments about a real democracy when we have to deal with failure of democratic lessons.
“The Office for Anti-Propaganda” was founded in 2007 in Frankfurt. The “Office” produces an archive of videos, texts and picture material on the subject of political propaganda. The focus is on Belarus because but its political model can be transferred to some other East European and Latin American countries from which Belarus gets political support. Belarus is also an outstanding example of how to establish a modern dictatorship and how the western democracies handle this “problem”. “The Office for Anti-Propaganda” is the result of long-standing work in gathering and archiving the original propaganda material and the works of the artists. It is shown in the form of an installation with an archive, which every viewer can use: select and watch the videos, read correspondence between the office and German authorities, or page through the original Belorussian “patriotic” ideological literature.
Marina Naprushkina, born 1981 in Minsk, Belarus. Her works is a range of media including painting, video and installation to develop critical examinations of power and the structure of the State, often using material acquired from contemporary Belarus. A rich source is the propagandistic material delivered by governmental institutions. There so obtained images and symbols become either slightly changed or inserted in a different context in order to reverse the original message. The artist’s painstaking dissection of the visual and linguistic structure of the authoritarian regime and research-based works demonstrate how state authority affects society, and transforms democracy into an illusion for those living under the persistent hegemony of the ruling network.
Eugen Radescu (b. 1978) is politologist (specialized in moral relativism and political ethics), cultural manager, curator and theoretician. He writes for various magazines and newspapers. He curated, among others, Bucharest Biennale 1 with the theme “Identity Factories” and “How Innocent Is That?” at Pavilion Bucharest. He published a book “How Innocent Is That?” at REVOLVER BOOKS, Berlin, Germany. He is co-editor of PAVILION – journal for politics and culture and co-director of Bucharest Biennale (with Razvan Ion) and the chairman of the organizational board of Pavilion and Bucharest Biennale. He is associate professor at Bucharest University and Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj. Lives and works in Bucharest.
The coloring book “My daddy is a policeman. What is he doing at work?” appeared as a part of the civil campaign against police violence in Belarus “Beware, police!”.
October 2011
