Disruptive Fridays series started in April 2020 by asking: what are the strategies to keep working with art and culture when our contexts of sharing are so limited? Six months later, the discussion re-visit this question with three speakers that have been trying out creative solutions for resistance to the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and hear from them how they have worked on reimagining culture in times of corona.

With:
– Davorka Begović (KONTEJNER, HR)
– Anna Ramos (Radio Web MACBA, ES)
– Slavo Krekovic (A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture, SK).
Moderated by Lieke Ploeger (Disruption Network Lab, NL/DE).

This episode’s speakers form part of a group of 10 cultural organisation from across Europe that work together in the Re-Imagine Europe project, addressing the social and political challenges we face today. They will share how they have found new ways to continue their cultural work over the past months, and we’ll discuss together how can we reimagine formats for cultural production.

Davorka Begović of KONTEJNER, an NGO engaged in curatorial work, the organization of art festivals and other public events, education and social theory, speaks about the challenges of festival production in times of corona. Despite the adjusted reality and programme changes because of different situations in different countries, they recently completed a successful edition of the Touch Me festival, dedicated to relations between technology, science and art.

Anna Ramos joins from Radio Web MACBA, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona’s online radio. RWM is a radio-beyond-radio, operating at the intersection of art, philosophy, critical thinking, radiophonic practices, experimental music and orality; an online project that has amassed 14 years of collective learning and more than 800 files. She will share the paradox of gaining exposure and new attention, thanks to the digital nature of the project -ie. podcasts- during the lockdown, while experiencing a temporary paralysis, both in their methodology and in the small community of affects behind the RWM Working Group.

Slavo Krekovic brings in the perspective of A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture, an independent cultural centre in Bratislava with daily public events (experimental music, new media art, contemporary dance, theatre, cinema, new media art) that has been facing challenges – as many others – since the first pandemic days in March 2020. The current governmental restrictions on public events in Slovakia are again going to be very radical and are forcing the independent cultural operators to rethink their approach, including setting up new kinds of educational and performance-oriented online events. He will also talk about the upcoming NEXT Festival of experimental music which is supposed to take place early December with the theme “Subject to change”.

Photo Courtesy of the organisation