Katarína Slezáková, The Július Koller Society, October 2023
The Július Koller Society held two workshops in October. The first workshop was called Imagination in Crisis, and the second one was called In the Language of Things.
The first one was delivered by a facilitator from the degrowth movement Katarína Kováčová. The methodology was based on a non-hierarchical pedagogy approach inspired by Paulo Freire. It consisted of two parts. The first was dedicated to the theoretical discussion on barriers to the imagination. The second part started with a visualisation exercise and then relied mostly on group work.
The second workshop aimed to use language from all kinds of biotopes – from anglicisms, neologisms, scientific lingo to advertising slang, cosmopolitan cant and location-specific vernacular to precisely describe the sounds, textures, images, movements and the inanimate objects. It was led by team member Kata Pirháčová. The workshop topic aligns well with the overall direction we are preparing for JKS. The chapter we are preparing for the IoK manual and final publication is going to be serving as a new “manifesto” that explains our approach to Koller’s archive. We strive to share, manage and protect the archive. However, we perceive it as an “archive of the commons” – based on which we cooperate with artists and curators, expand and rearrange original meanings with current readings, project our fears, ideas and relationships into it. For us, the JK archive is a place for discussion, negotiation and the search for potential. It is an opportunity to create cultural situations by layering and re-interpreting its contents from contemporary standpoints: perspectives that are hidden, marginalized, ignored and obscured – all in order to deviate from the established ruts. The archive is a source, a cornerstone for the effort to forge alternative versions of the future, to form new paths of thought. Furthermore, we are interested in the personal self-archivation of individuals, which we explore not only through our exhibitions, but also in our live programs that are regularly focusing on memory and diary writing. These themes are cross-cutting, appearing regularly in different shapes. For the exhibition curated by Nora Swantje-Almes, we are going to have a guided tour of Bratislava inspired by the diaries of Imrich Matyáš, a forgotten queer activist from the inter-war and totalitarian periods. (More information on his life can be found online at http://matyas.sk, unfortunately only available in Slovak). Moreover, we are going to have a feminist diary writing workshop by Lucie Jarkovská, who is an academic in the field of gender studies and sexual education and a popularisation of feminism.
