All that We Have in Common
ALL THAT WE HAVE IN COMMON
8 November 2022 – 20 Fevruary 2023 Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje
Curated by: Mustafa Asan, Mo Diener, Mira Gakjina and Jovanka Popova
Represented artists: Delaine Le Bas, Ahmed Kadri, Sead Kazanxhiu, Durmish Kjazim, Robert Gabris and Ľuboš Kotlár, Roma Jam Session Art Kollective (Mustafa Asan, Mo Diener, Milena Petrovic), Nihad Nino Pušija, André Jenö Raatzsch, Emĺlia Rigová, Ceija Stojka, Dan Turner
International exhibition organised by Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje as part of 14th European Nomadic Biennial of Contemporary Art – Manifesta
I say no to Identity theft. I say no to who you think I am. I say no to what you think I should look like. The gaze that is put upon us is disrupted.
Delaine Le Bas
Representation fails to capture the affirmed world of difference. Representation has only a single center, a unique and receding perspective, and in consequence a false depth. It mediates everything, but mobilizes and moves nothing.
Gillez Deleuze
All that We Have in Common is an exhibition that presents contemporary international art- ists and analyzes the possibilities for sharing different voices and common concern in the capitalist local and global context.
The exhibition addresses the politics of representation through works of art and practices, and at the same time 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 we represent, which voices do we prefer over the others, 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? At the same time, it considers care as an intimate connection between art and social practices and the possibility for art to discov- er and nurture new forms of care and recognition, at the intersection between social and political, subjectivity and solidarity within the community.
The Roma community as an organic part of the space in which the Museum of Contempo- rary 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 politi- cal 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 be- tween different knowledge and association in joint action and provides a common search for an appropriate solution by linking different types of crisis – systemic violence, exclusion, and stereotypes of Roma (as in the works of Delaine Le Bas and Roma Jam Session Art Kollective), identity issues, struggles of the marginalized and personal transformations (Durmish Kjazim and Ahmed Kadri), untold historical narations and underrepresentation (André Jenö Raatzsch), women and gender issues, the LGBT community issues (Robert Gabris and Ľuboš Kotlár), the Holocaust in relation with today’s worldwide ultranationalist political ideologies (Ceija Stojka), the war, the migrant crisis (Nihad Nino Pušija) and the housing issues (Sead Kazanxhiu), the need of different politics of care (Dan Turner and Emĺlia Rigová) etc.
The exhibition 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.
