NSK STaTE PavIlION — 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE 2017 11 May – 15 July 2017

Exhibition: Palazzo Ca’ Tron, IUAV University of Venice Commissioned by IRWIN

Inaugural lecture by Slavoj Žižek Curated by Zdenka Badovinac and Charles Esche

11 May 2017, Aula Magna Tolentini Installation by Ahmet Öğüt

AN APOLOGY List of contents FOR MODERNITY It is cruel to refuse shelter to refugees. For the state in time, transgression of But it is much more cruel to make people the bounds of the ethical idea is as serious Introduction by IRWIN 2 refugees. The refugees fleeing to Europe as violation of the boundaries for the state are put in an impossible situation of seek - in space. It is imperative for NSK as the Zdenka Badovinac and Charles Esche, NSK State ing help from the perpetrators of their suf - state in time that we take a categorical Pavilion in the context of the 57th Venice Biennale 3 fering and misery. We, the liberal Western stance toward these developments. Since world, have destroyed their life world. we cannot expect our Western leaders to Editor’s note by Mara Ambrozič 4 The governments of our states in space act ethically, we take the burden of moral have done it. We as their citizens are all responsibility and guilt on ourselves and Slavoj Žižek, The Courage of Hopelessness 4 complicit in the crimes our elected and sincerely apologize to the refugees, as well unelected leaders have committed or as - as to those who were unable to or chose Eda Čufer, It is Time to Rethink the State: sisted in the regions from which the not to flee, for all the crimes and suffering On NSK State 5 refugees flee. We as citizens have done we have inflicted on them. nothing effective to prevent or stop those Slavoj Žižek, Es Gibt Keinen Staat In Europa 8 crimes from happening. By this omission, For the state in time, taking an ethical we have not only condoned the destruction stance means opening a political perspec - Ahmet Öğüt’s statement 9 of the lives of others, but utterly corroded tive. We need to figure out politically what our own moral and political world as well. is to be done. We must begin to work hard Delegates 9 In the process, we have become stupid and on ceasing to be stupid and ugly, on re - ugly. How are we supposed to help the deeming our mind and soul. We need to ad - Workshops 10 refugees when we, reduced to powerless - dress the causes of evil instead of getting ness, cannot even help ourselves? lost in fighting culture wars among our - Claudio Donadel, Beyond Borders 11 selves over the effects of the crime. We need NSK, as the state in time, understands to alleviate the humanitarian crisis – that NSK Officers 12 that the state is the actuality of the ethi - is self-evident. But it is of no lesser urgency cal idea. The state is the basic condition that we articulate and bring about a long- Róza El-Hassan, for individuals’ moral and political life, term political solution. We need to free our - for their freedom. In today’s world, a selves from the ultimately criminal powers Whom shall we ask for amnesty? 13 human being is nothing without the state. that rule us and reestablish democracy in But the Western liberal governments our home countries, and commit ourselves Jela Krečič, The Final Countdown: Europe, Refugees and the Left 14 have violated the borders and destroyed with all due humility to help restore po - states from Afghanistan to Libya. The litical life in the countries from which the Biographies 14 people from those countries were forced refugees have fled. We need to stop the to flee our bombs and the violence of our senseless business of destruction and reaf - NSK State Venice Pavilion in Vienna 15 terrorist proxy armies. When we destroyed firm the majesty of the state both in time their states, we reduced them to nothing. and space. How to get there 16 For as an old humanist adage goes, si nisi cives nisi homo . Having annihilated these The text Apology for Modernity was sent by email to a sample of Impressum 16 people as citizens, we are degrading them 1500 NSK citizens who were asked to respond with answers: as humans even when we give them shelter. yes, I agree with this statement or No, I don’t agree with this statement. The results of this small inquiry are (at the time of print - Much more often, however, the refugees ing, 25.04.2017) as follows: 86,5 % voted yES, 9 % voted NO. 4.5% of answers were undefined. Since we do not have all t he have to submit themselves to insults after email addresses we would like to encourage NSK citizens to they have suffered injury. send their vote along with their passport number to the following NSK STaTE PavIlION NEwSPaPEr – frEE cOPy address: [email protected]. your vote will be strictly confidential. www.NSK-STaTE-PavIlION.Org NSK STaTE PavIlION — 2 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE

We thank Zdenka Badovinac and Charles and with the help of the latter opened the possi - NSK STATE Esche for their enthusiasm and commitment in bility for the humanitarian protection applicants conceiving and developing the project, for their accommodated in the Veneto Region to partici - PAVILION IN courage in accepting our invitation to participate pate in the project – but also recognized in this in such a risky project, as well as for the trust specific art project a potential channel for dis - THE CONTExT Of they have thus placed in us. seminating information about the issues relating Due to its specific concept, the project also to migrant communities. In his written proposal THE 57TH VENICE involves a number of outstanding collaborators he presents an innovative program for cross- without whom the project would simply not border cooperation and implementation of a BIENNALE have been possible. Ahmet Öğüt is the author of reception policy based on the vast experience the exhibition's installation, which has by far of Italian civil associations in this field and the NSK State in Time, which was established in outgrown the functionality of a design, becom - problems resulting from inadequate collabora - 1992, has more than 15,000 citizens today and ing an autonomous work of art. The delegates tion offered to Italy by the rest of Europe in this their numbers keep growing. Although it is true Bisan Abu Eisheh, Azra Akšamija, Djordje respect. The curators of the exhibition recog - that in terms of population size NSK State in Balzamović, Safia Dickersbach, Claudio Don - nized his proposal as an important contribution Time cannot compare to most other states, one adel, Michael fehr, Róza El-Hassan, Kendell to the entire installation. We extend our utmost can claim that in terms of the structure of its cit - Geers, Sarah Lunaček, Sohrab Mohebbi, Victor thanks to all the above-mentioned individuals izens it is already a superpower in the field of Mutelekesha, Ahmet Öğüt and Malina Suliman for their significant contributions to the articula - contemporary art. Its citizens include a number have enabled communication between the proj - tion of the project. of exceptional, world renowned artists, art theo - ect and the individuals who have personal expe - We are also grateful to all who have made rists and curators, who even the world’s most rience of migration. Slavoj Žižek will give a this project possible. Just as we would have developed countries in this field would envy us lecture entitled The Courage of Hopelessness at had a hard time undertaking the project without for. So it was not hard for us to find among the opening of the NSK State Pavilion and Jela the support of the a/political foundation, we NSK citizens a top team of curators and invite Krečič has proposed to publish a collection of could not have finished it without the coopera - them to present the remarkable achievements of texts entitled The Final Countdown: Europe, tion and support of Blaž Peršin and Museum NSK citizens in the NSK State Pavilion, which Refugees and the Left , which will shed a critical and Galleries of Ljubljana; Galerija Gregor will be put on display this year for the first time light on the central theme of the project. She Podnar, Berlin; Wiener festwochen, Vienna; in Venice, along with the pavilions of eighty- will also select the texts and edit the publication. Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia; four other countries. The selected curators were Tomaž Mastnak has proposed and authored the Department of Culture of Municipality of given total freedom in formulating the concept text An Apology for Modernity . Claudio Donadel , Ljubljana; RPS d.o.o.; KD funds; Stratkom; and theme of the exhibition and in selecting the a specialist in migration policies, who was VOKA Ljubljana; IUAV University of Venice; participating artists, activists and theorists. And asked to help in the realization of the project, Co.Ge.S. Cooperative for Immigration Policies, we have tried our best to help them realize their has not only interceded in communication Mestre; NSK State Reserve, New York; and ideas as fully as possible. between the curators and local associations – UBT University Pristina. We thank Anton Vidokle and e-flux for their generous media support as well as Wolfgang Schlag and Birgit Lurz for their decision to present the NSK State Pavilion in Vienna. Last but not least, we express our heartfelt thanks to Mara Ambrožič for her dedicated and professional work as the project’s director, who watched over the entire project together with us. We would also like to express our thanks to Ajhan Bajmaku, Katharine Carl, Eda Čufer, Mateja Demšič, Alberto felenga, Chiara figone, Branko filipič, Matjaž Gantar, Edmond Hajrizi, Sanja Kuveljić Bandić, Tevž Logar, Krištof Mlakar, Anton Peršak, Agnese Pierobon, Gregor Podnar, Darko Pokorn, Mara Rosseti, Becky Shirwan, Andrei Tretyakov, Angela Vettese and franci Zavrl. We extend our thanks to all the participants for their contributions to this unique project, which we believe will attract a lot of interest among the public of the 57th Venice Biennale, and are at the same time grateful to all of them for making possible the most complex appear - ance of the NSK State in Time in space so far.

Commissioners IRWIN

Palazzo ca’ Tron, view from the grand canal, venice (Italy), courtesy the artists, 2017 NSK STaTE PavIlION — 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE 3

The questions were: The final core element is present within NSK STATE IN TIME the newspaper available from the Pavilion. What do you want to take This is a text proposed and authored by PAVILION Tomaž Mastnak. It is a formal state apology , with you from European heritage a gesture that has been made by a number BIENNALE DI (as you understand it) to help of European and post-colonial states in build a new and better world? the recent past. This apology accepts, VENEZIA 2017 on behalf of the state, the burden of a What do you want to forget or collective modern past and seeks to apolo - The first NSK State in Time Pavilion wrestles gise not just for one specific incident but with its concrete time and place: 2017, West delete from European heritage rather to address the whole of colonial and Central Europe, Veneto, the Venice Biennale. (as you understand it) to avoid neocolonial global relations that we can Surrounding us on all sides are pavilions repeating the mistakes of call modernity. The nexus of modernity- representing the states that divide up this the past? coloniality is often falsely separated into world between them. Before us, are the right and wrong or good and bad. Here, state less, the displaced, the migrants and the modernity is the ghost that refuses to die, refugees who cannot or will not fit into this What do you want to take with as evidenced by contemporary migration scheme of belonging – or not yet, at least. you from the heritage of your own politics and inequality. The NSK Apology Behind us is the unparalleled architectural country (as you understand it) to for Modernity is therefore a recognition grandeur of Venice as perhaps Europe’s first help build a new and better world? of the failure of modernity in the present modern state as well as a more general and a step towards shaping a new kind of Euro pean history of exercising power and future. It is also a plea to speed our collec - of na tional, religious and ethnic division that What do you want to forget or tive detachment from the belief in moder - drove its colonial adventures and modern delete from the heritage of your nity/modernism and all that it has come to st statecraft since the first time that the Muslims own country (as you understand it) represent in the early 21 century across were driven out of Western Europe in 1492. to avoid repeating the mistakes the world, and in the first place an apology for the current geopolitics and Western NSK ’s State in Time offers a different per - of the past? dominance that have broken the backs of spective to think about the world. It is not so many post-colonial states since the end in competition with spatial states so it can Thanks to the advice of Djordje Balmazovi ć of the Second World War. rethink what being and belonging might and to aid communication across so many mean. It has a n open idea of what citizenship language barriers , we sometimes simplified Accompanying the pavilion and extending might signify and it offers that citizenship the questions to: its context and content at every level is a as a complementary identity that exists in lecture by Slavoj Žižek on 11th May 2017 parallel to national ity . The ownership of What do you think is good and a book edited by Jela Krečič called The NSK papers is also not yet defined either (or future) in Europe? Final Countdown: Europe, Refugees and by rights or responsibilities, though citizens the Left . More information about all the could at any time start to assert them. This par ticipants can be found in this newspaper. state-of-becoming is crucial to the status of What do you think is not good The NSK Pavilion is an independent project, the NSK state, one that smells of potential in Europe? commissioned and produced by IRWIN, be cause it is free from the weight of the co-produced by the Museum and Galleries crimes of older states. It can breathe the air of Ljubljana, and co-organised by Temple of statehood without choking. What do you think is good Productions, Paris and Društvo NSK (or future) in your own country? Infor mativni center, Ljubljana. We were invited to be the curators by the IRWIN, the commissioners of the pavilion. What do you think is not good Curators Our immediate question was how to make in your own country? Zdenka Badovinac, the promise of the NSK state tangible; how Charles Esche to give it a body that looks, sounds and acts differently to all the other state pavilions The various replies to these questions form and that does what only an artists ’ state might the first section inside the pavilion with the be able to do . To that end, we turned first to overall title New Symbolic Disorder . Here the citizens of the state for help and invited the representations of the world according to Ahmet Öğüt to work with us on the form migrants are gathered, assembled and shared. and content of the pavilion. More broadly, But the pavilion will try to look beyond the we looked towards the people who have, in dark horizon of the present and attempt to one way or another, experienced migration: imagine a new community. To do so, it needs that process of leaving one's home to try to to be more than just a space of exhibition and build another. for migrants, state and na - reflection. Presenting an artists’ state for the tion ality are unlikely to be the uncomplicated first time, we felt it had to act in the present birthright of folk that have stayed where they and not only work with representations of were born. In a somewhat perverse way, they reality. Therefore, working together as a have the advantage of a bifocal perspective; team, we made contact with the organizations one that can look at two different conditions (Co.Ge.S., Mestre and Common Ground, or cultures and perceive each in greater depth Venice) that support recent migrants to the than could ever be possible with a single eye. Veneto area and through them invited new We wanted to address this relational perspec - participants who were willing to work on tive directly by asking a number of citizen presenting the pavilion to the public and delegates to choose people in their circle that opening a discussion about migration, citizen - were willing to answer four questions. The ship, heritage and identity. Their tasks include answers could be in any medium and any the official act of issuing citizenship to those tone of voice they chose. members of the public wishing to apply. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 4 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE

EDITOR’S NOTE THE COURAGE Of This newspaper has been structured in order to draw the whole operation proposed by the HOPELESSNESS curatorial team together, including the work of artist Ahmet Öğüt and the hundred NSK Delegates involved. Introduced by the com - Slavoj Žižek missioners IRWIN, the main topic is explained and expanded in the contribution written by Badovinac and Esche. The curators’ text is The lines from Joel 3:14 – “Multitudes, The true novelty of the french Revolution followed by Slavoj Žižek’s announcement of multitudes, in the valley of decision! resides in the distinction between citizen’s rights the theme of his inau gural lecture, which will for the day of the Lord is near in the and human rights. One should reject here t he accompany the opening of the NSK Pavilion. valley of decision.” – provide the first classic Marxist notion of human rights as the accurate description of the moment rights of the member of bourgeois civil society. The historical and theoretical frame around when a society is at a crossroads, While citizens are defined by the political order the NSK State is dealt with in an essay by Eda confronted with a choice that may of a sovereign state, “human” is what remains Čufer – one of the founding members of NSK – decide its fate. This is the situation of a citizen when he/she is deprived of the citi - which contextualises the emergence and exis - of Europe today. zen ship, finding him/herself in what in artillery tence of the new state. The second historical one calls the open space, reduced to the abstract focus is given through the reprint of Žižek’s arti - Every anti-immigrant populist would talk ing body. Recall the Calais camp before it cle writte n in 1993 – one year after the creation fully agree with this claim: yes, Europe’s was dismantled – as Jean-Claude Milner wrote, of the NSK State – in a period marked by the very identity is threatened by the invasion “those who are assembled there from 2000 are civil war, which led to the final dissolution of of Muslim and other refugee multitudes. not guilty of anything, they are not accused of the Socialist federal Republic of Yugoslavia. But the actual situation is exactly the oppo - anything, they do not infringe upon any part of A statement by Ahmet Öğüt brings us back to site: it is today’s anti-immigrant populists the law; they are simply there and they live.” the present, and introduces this year’s Pavilion who are the true threat to the emancipatory It is in this sense that the universal human rights design, conceived as a direct interpretation of core of the European Enlightenment. should remain our regulative when we negotiate the curatorial concepts guiding the project; A Europe where Marine le Pen or Geert the difficult relationship between the constraints alongside, names of all NSK Delegates involved. Wilders are in power is no longer Europe. of citizenship and particular ways of life. Without The newspaper then opens up a specific section So what is this Europe worth fighting for? this compass we inevitably regress to barbarism. highlighting the social dimension of the process, which plays an important role within the project. first, a note introduces the methodology and structure of the workshops that took place in order to create a model of cooperation between the social and cultural spheres. Next, Delegate Claudio Donadel presents a short version of his project proposal Beyond Borders , a transna - NSK CHART tional reception model for asylum seekers based on a widespread territorial reception system. This section closes with the presentations of the NSK Officers (Amarjotpal Kaur, Mercy Nwafor, Abraham Ohamhen and Charles Tawiah), who will play a key role within the project, being directly involved in the running of the Pavilion and issuing NSK Passports throughout the period. The newspaper also contains an article written by Delegate Róza El-Hassan as a response to the curators’ questionnaire, where the artist calls for the need to provide amnesty. In the last section, two important parallel proj ects are presented. first, the publication edited by Jela Krečič The Final Countdown: Europe, Refugees and the Left , whose exceptional con - tributions deal with the major political problems of today’s geopolitical situation. Second, the presentation of the NSK State Venice Pavilion in Vienna – Thinking Europe , a collateral project, curated by Birgit Lurz and Wolfgang Schlag, which will open in May 2017.

Distributed free of charge at the NSK State Pavilion and in other venues in the city of Venice, the newspaper is also available in other Pavilions like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republic of Kiribati, and as well as online.

Editor Mara Ambrožič NSK, NSK Chart , 1984 NSK STaTE PavIlION — 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE 5

IT IS TIME TO RETHINK THE STATE: ON NSK STATE NSK consciously eclipsed the subjec - Eda Čufer tivity of the author with the object of creation, giving up control over final form, expression or intention of the In 1984 three art groups based in so-called ‘artwork’, while in return former Yugoslavia merged into a larger achieving access to realms of historic collective ‘body’ and adopted the name uncertainty where the actual NSK Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). 1 ‘artworks’ were formed and performed. The name was chosen to extend the NSK strategies were looking for successful code-playing deployed ways to break through the screen by one of the constituent groups’ of reality owned by contemporary choice of name; specifically the group ‘artifi cial body-soul politic’ and to Laibach had adopted the German inflict, at least momentary, cognitive name for the city of Ljubljana, where and somatic splits and reversals. The Neue Slowenische Kunst was founded reversals achieved by the strategy of and where it is still based. In the ‘doubling’ performed the function of post- WWII historic context – where empowering the spectators of NSK’s sovereign European socialist and spectacles to see and recognize them - lib eral democratic States constituted selves, not as spectators but as social their moral and political values on agents who, whether they liked it or the military defeat of Nazi Germany – not, found themselves acting like to - Neue Slowenische Kunst functioned tally alienated dummies animated by as a “double code”, its meaning and the soul of the invisible ventriloquist. message hidden in contentious contra - The transformation of NSK to diction between the denotative mean - NSK State in Time was a deliberate ing of the statement (New Slovenian application of NSK’s technique of Art) and the medium in which it was ‘doubling’ onto the irrevocably changed ex pressed (the German language). political and historic landscape. NSK State in Time mimics the process of NSK State emerged from the ‘becoming’ a State while, by proclaim - eclipse of two other States: the ing itself to be an exterritorial and decline of socialist Yugoslavia by supranational entity, evading the trap the end of the 1980s and the subse - of becoming a building block for quent inauguration (in 1991) of the Slovenia’s anachronistic national inde pendent democratic State of statehood and its pathetically heroic Slovenia. These events were part of mythologies. By the same token, it a larger historic breakdown of the catapults itself back to the open-ended Socialist States in Eastern Europe continuum of history and continues which for most of the twentieth “interrogating” the ‘new millennium’s Neue Slowenische Kunst members and friends, It would only be a matter of time until century represented an alternative soul’ and its multitudes of imploding ljubljana (Slovenia), courtesy NSK, 1986 Capitalism, arriving at its fully devel - to the monopoly capitalism of the contradictions. NSK State in Time oped corporate stage, would discover so-called ‘first world’. connects the history of the twentieth Art and politics in the 20 th century a use-value of the “inverted” lands, The emergence of the NSK State century with historic possibilities and became fused to the point that it was no and perfect the ways to explore and in the 1990s had its conceptual her - necessities of the twenty-first century. longer possible to unambiguously locate exploit them. itage in NSK of the 1980s, which is to In an uncanny twist of history the NSK the borders between them. The old art say, among other things, that it wasn’t State placed itself into emerging his - that we knew and loved, it was claimed, Duchamp and Malevich produced looking to provide unambiguous an - toric realms characterized by unfath - symbolically died in 1913, when their “empty signifiers” at the begin - swers or definitive readings, but rather omable contradictions and pointed to Kazimir Malevich conceived the Black ning of the 20 th century – the cen - to ‘itself’ function as a “question” (as possible forms of future “inverted to - Square and Marcel Duchamp intro - tury, as we have already noted, that Slavoj Žižek has posited), or as an talitarianism.” 2 The unrestricted move - duced his first ready-made to the world. 4 introduced an eerie object capable “interrogation machine” (as Alexei ment of financial ‘Capital’, which now With WWI, the disintegration of of bringing the spectral presence of Monroe has suggested), transferring qualifies as a new global and transcen - Austro-Hungarian , Ottoman and Russian the entire globe into people’s living the entire responsibility for the pro - dent Sovereign, is gradually taking the empires, the October revolution, and rooms. Withholding all content for duction of meaning and message to place of “waning sovereignty” of the the “specter” of communism which for positivist interpretation and identifi - the reader or spectator. While the ideal national liberal State. Capital alone, as decades had already haunted the world, cation, their empty icons shifted the NSK witness was expected to strongly Wendy Brown reminds us in her recent the era of classical colonialism came entire discussion about the “state of react to the audio-visual and linguistic book, “appears perpetual and absolute, to an end and an entirely new era of art” elsewhere. Instead of depicting materials that were offered for cultural increasingly unaccountable and primor - expropriation and exploration began. an object to be looked at, Bicycle consumption, and to produce the dial, the source of all commands, yet Just as Bicycle Wheel and Black Square Wheel and Black Square depicted meaning of her or his experience beyond the reach of the nomos (exter - marked a turning point in “art history” , the dispositive which would define through emotional and intellectual nally codified set of rules): a form of so too did WWI represent a fundamen - the visual, fetish and discursive struggle, we as NSK members had to Sovereignty but without a Sovereign.” 3 tal point of transition in “world history” regimes of the 20 th century. Offering accept and strictly obey Laibach’s – a moment when the world as an themselves more as objects of inter - core principles “of conscious rejection ob ject of exploration and colonization pretation than as objects of visual 2 of personal tastes, judgments, convic - The term “inverted totalitarianism” was coined from the 15 th century on finally be - con sumption, these two icons accu - by Sheldon S. Wolin and developed in his book 5 tion” and “free depersonalization”. Democracy Inc. Princeton: Princeton University came depicted, mapped and owned. mulated meanings that would funda - Press, 2008. It describes a seemingly “ideal type” mentally inform the differences of government that the USA developed after 4 Gérard Wajcman. Objekt stoletja . Ljubljana: Analecta, between two dominant and compet - WWII and during the Cold War. 2007 (L’Objet du siècle. Éditions Verdier, 1998). ing types of society as they viewed 1 The three original constituent founding groups of 3 Wendy Brown. Walled States, Waning Sovereignty . NSK are: Laibach (1980), Irwin (1983) and Scipion 5 This idea can be found in John Berger, The Success & each other through the mirror of the New York: Zone Books, 2010. Nasice Sister’s Theatre (1983) Failure of Picasso . New York: Pantheon Books, 1965. Cold War. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 6 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE

NSK, NSK State Sarajevo (Bosnia and NSK Embassy Moscow (conceptualized and herzegovina), courtesy NSK, 1995 organized by IrwIN), Photo Jože Suhadolnik, courtesy NSK, 1992

Boris Groys proposed looking at NSK in the 1980s transformed Black Square as if it represented a rite into “NSK State in Time” at a mo - of passage of art, from the sphere of ment of high social anxiety and “positive reality” (objective) into the blinding collisions between the de - sphere of “negative reality” (virtuality), clining models of the 20 th century au - epitomizing the immersion of Soviet thoritarian state (epitomized in avant-garde art into the virtual world Yugoslavian bloodshed), conceptu - of Stalinist Gesamtkunstwerk. 6 Black ally and historically regressive and Square , according to this interpreta - outlived models of the national State tion, represents the world objectified (exemplified in the inauguration of in the Soviet totalitarian State known the independent state of Slovenia) for its absorption of art (as an agency and the hastening policies of pan- of the subject) and for the State itself European integration and the aggres - becoming a Subject and Artist instead. sive invasion of predatory Western states that were formed following they had “heard” that NSK is a beauti - Bicycle Wheel on the other hand, neo-liberal economic interests the breakup of some of its previous ful country and wanted to travel there. records the absorption of art into an searching for new, “virgin” markets. ones (Yugoslavia, C zechoslovakia, The Slovenian embassies in the re gion autonomous art system, which wor - Before anybody in Eastern Europe Soviet Union). The largest number started getting overwhelmed by phone ships the “pendulum of alienation” woke up from the hangover of transi - of passports were issued in Sarajevo calls from these new NSK citizens and feeds on self-recursive criticism tion, we were already interpellated at the end of the war in 1995, and ask ing questions about visas and their and negation. By shifting attention into a restored globally imposed class although some NSK passport holders rights of citizenship. Eventually the away from the power of meaning and system in which everyone has a used their passports – which success - situation grew to the point that the message inherent in the art object clearly delineated place and say. fully reproduced the look of standard Slovenian foreign Ministry asked to the instrumental power of the In the newly reified international sovereign state passports – to actually NSK members to write an explanation value- creating art system, Duchamp’s and global relations, the passport pass state borders in Europe and North clearly stating that “NSK is not a ‘real’ work in the first decades of the 20 th immediately started to function as America, the majority of passport State but an ‘art’ State”, and that the century served to open the door to the a brand. (“Made in Slovenia”. You holders understood its use-value as an NSK passport is not a valid document art of conceptualism in the 1960s and mean Slovakia?) Suddenly we were art object, even when using it for non- for crossing state borders or applying beyond. Living in the saturated tele- on the map, but we didn’t recognize art purposes. But in 2004 something for visas. They published the statement information society, artists of the sec - ourselves in the patterns in which happened that would radically change on their website and advised NSK to ond half of the 20 th century understood we were recognized by Others. the meaning of the NSK passport. spread the same information through that as a consequence of the increased Sud denly, thousands of NSK passport their own channels as well as in the aestheticization and virtualization of One event during the twenty applications started arriving at NSK Nigerian media. living environments, art could continu e years existence of NSK State in Time headquarters in Ljubljana from the The Nigerian people’s “over- to signify as art only by reverting the deserves special mention. from 1992 African state of Nigeria, specifically iden tification” with the passport as a definition of art and entering into a to 2004, most of the applicants for from the densely populated metropoli - symbol of rights and privileges guar - sphere of “life itself”. the NSK State in Time passport were tan region of Ibadan. for the Nigerian anteeing its holder a share in the sys - people involved with contemporary users, the NSK passport was not un - tem of legal protection, mobility and art, culture and western discourse. derstood as an object of art, but as a an identity and status that is lacking The NSK passport’s meaning and le gitimizing form of self-identification without affirmation by documents, 6 This idea was a central subject of Groys’s early work interest was contextualized in part and self-registration. When inter - points to a disturbing absence of such Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin . See also Groys’s chapter on Ilya Kabakov in History Becomes Form: Moscow by the changing map of Eastern viewed, some of the NSK passport rights and privileges for vast popula - st Conceptualism . Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. Europe, and the new independent holders from Nigeria later said that tions inhabiting the 21 century earth. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE 7

On the other hand the passport, in vented in the era of classical colo - nialism and national state building, might just as well become obsolete as a form of identification as new technologies implement checkpoint systems that permeate secular space and introduce surveillance mechanisms at almost any transactional threshold – cash register, hospital reception, bank machine, commercial website, even private home. An organ such as the ‘eye’, which was ‘The Organ’ of western modernity and its representa - tional dispositive (but in a role of the instrument belonging to the subject), now itself becomes an object to be identified, (but with the identification being performed by the authority of the machine, which can “see” into the darkness of the flesh of which the human eye is made). The merging of political, legal, economic and cultural aspects of identity into one form of digital payment-identification docu - ment (a fusion of today’s credit card and passports) is imminent. In the near future, physical movement may be - come more complicated and restricted than ever before. “The conception of a control mechanism, giving the position of any element within an open environment at any given in - stant, is not necessarily one of science fiction. felix Guattari has imagined a city where one would be able to leave one's apartment, one's street, one’s neighborhood, thanks to one’s (dividual ) electronic card that raises a given barrier; but the card could just as easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours; what counts is not the barrier but the com - puter that tracks each person’s posi - tion – licit or illicit – and effects a universal modulation.” 7 The mere facts of existence of the applicants and NSK passport holders from Nigeria are in painful conflict with this vision of the future. As the debates that took place during the first NSK Citizens Congress in Berlin in 2010 made clear, the inhabitants of IrwIN, First NSK Citizens Congress, Berlin, today’s world are not yet equipped to October 2010, Participants . Photo: christian Ditsch, 2010 navigate between these new forms of control and exclusion. Non-art crowd NSK from Kapital to Capital , edited by Zdenka people are buying the NSK passport Badovinac, Eda Čufer and anthony gardner, MIT Press, cambridge, Ma (uSa), 2015 not to enjoy it as a little “Rembrandt masterpiece” but because they need to NSK, NSK Passports , courtesy NSK, 2017 use the canvas as an “ironing board.” 8 The two crowds (art and non-art) are however brought together by The evolutionary function of the same object, which, as Hansi sovereign a national State is histori - Momodu insisted, indicates that in cally inseparable from its colonial the final analysis we all aspire to heredity exemplified by permanent the same ideal and necessity of the violation of the civil rights of those who redefined future State which will were not eligible to its membership. be responsive to the challenges and The paradox of the State thus remains needs of global citizenship. 9 achingly real in today’s world, espe - cially if contemplated through the urgency of global justice. It is time 7 Gilles Deleuze. Postscript on the Societies of Control . October 59. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992. to rethink the State (and the best way to rethink it is to remake it). 8 I’m referring to Duchamp’s example of the “reciprocal ready made” where Rembrandt’s masterpiece is used as an ironing board.

9 Hansi Momodu expressed this opinion in her unpu blished interview with Borut Vogelnik at the first NSK’s Citizens Congress. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 8 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE

ES GIBT KEINEN STAAT IN EUROPA

Slavoj Žižek for many long years in left-wing (and Thus, Etienne Balibar has altogether not only left-wing) mythology the appropriately labeled the current State appeared as the original source situation in Europe with the syntagma of Evil, as a living dead sponging off “Es gibt keinen Staat in Europa” the body of the community. The re - (“There is no State in Europe”). pressive, particularly ideological ma - chinery of the State was presented as from all this it is thus necessary to the process of supervising and main - draw what at first glance seems a taining discipline, as armour shaping paradoxical, yet crucial conclusion: the healthy body of the community. today the concept of utopia has made The utopian perspective, which hence - an about-face turn – utopian energy forth opened up towards both the radi - is no longer directed towards a state - cal left-wing as well as the antiliberal less community, but towards a state right-wing, was the abolition of the without a nation, a state which would State or its subordination to the com - no longer be founded on an ethnic munity. Today’s experience, summed community and its territory, therefore up in the word “Bosnia”, confronts us simultaneously towards a state with the reality of this utopia. with out territory, towards a purely artificial structure of principles and What we are witnessing in Bosnia is authority which will have severed the direct consequence of the disinte - the umbilical chords of ethnic origin, gration of State authority or its submis - indigenousness and rootedness. sion to the power play between ethnic communities – what is missing in As far as art, according to definition, Bosnia is a unified State authority ele - is subversive in relation to the existing vated above ethnic disputes. A similar establishment, any art which today tendency can be observed in Serbia wants to be up to the level of its where we are again dealing with a state assignment must be a state art in the which is not based on the modern con - service of a still-non-existent country. cept of nationhood, but has fused with It must abandon the celebration the pre-state ethnic mix, and thus in of islands of privacy, seemingly Kosovo paradoxically in the same terri - insulated from the machinery of tory two states coexist: the Serbian state authority, and must voluntarily authority and the para-State agencies of become a small cog in this machinery, the Republic of Kosovo. The old left- a servant to the new Leviathan, wing disinclination towards the rule of which it is summoning like the law and order has thus come face to genie from the bottle. face with its own truth, manifested in Bosnia and Serbia where unsupervised This text was included in IRWIN’s local warlords are plundering, killing catalogue, published by Moderna and settling private scores. In contrast Galerija to accompany the hosting to expectations it has become clear that of the NSK Pavilion as part of the there is nothing liberating about the Slovenian Pavilion, 45th Venice breaking of state authority – on the con - Biennale, 1993. trary: we are consigned to corruption and the impervious game of local inter - ests which are no longer restricted by a formal legal framework.

In a certain sense “Bosnia” is merely a metaphor for Europe as a whole. Europe is coming closer and closer to Postering action for IrwIN’s exhibition in the NSK proto-pavilion in the house of Eleonora Mantese a state of non-statehood where state during the 42nd venice Biennale. Photo Darko mechanisms are losing their binding Pokorn, courtesy of the author, 1986 character. The authority of the state IrwIN, Plaque of the NSK Pavilion hosted by the is being eroded from the top by the Slovenian Pavilion , 46th venice Biennale, ateneo trans-European regulations from di San Basso, (commissioner Zdenka Badovinac), Brussels and the international economic courtesy of the artists, 1993 ties and from the bottom by local and ethnic interests, while none of these elements are strong enough to fully replace state authority. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE 9

DESIGNING THE NSK STATE PAVILION

Ahmet Öğüt

When analyzing the strategies of NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst), Alexei Monroe changes Hakim Bey’s term TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone) into Temporary Hegemonic Zone . In early 1992, shortly after the collapse of Socialism and the tumultuous break -up of Yugoslavia, the NSK State in Time emerged at a moment when a radical rethinking of the nation state was necessary, and yet it did not manifest itself geopolitically. The NSK State in Time’s legacy of temporary embassies – that previously took place in Moscow, Tirana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Berlin and many other cities – will continue with the NSK State Pavilion, which will be governed in collaboration with Humanitarian Protection Applicants, Sans Papiers , and stateless individuals. Designing the NSK State Pavilion has ahmet Öğüt, preliminary sketches and ideas been a productively challenging task that took into for NSK State Pavilion, photomontages, courtesy the artist, 2016-2017 DELEGATES consideration the urgencies of the present political climate. The notion of the State, the definition of citizenship and the Kafkaesque elements of bureau - Mohamed Abdol Monem, Bisan Abu-Eisheh, cracy will be questioned through the conceptual Ahmed Adelian, Ashok Adicéam, Azra Akšamija, and physical experience of gravity. The space will Lauren Alexander (foundland Collective), Tani be experienced in different parts: ‘An Apology’, a Bahtuali, Bilal Alkatout, Ammar Alkhatib, Jawad room including over 100 responses from contribu - Al Malhi, Samer Arquawi, Kazem Ashourzadeh, tors, and an NSK Passport Office. The NSK State Wali Askarzay, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Đorđe Pavilion will be designed to transform the gesture Balmazović, Javier Barrios, Dorian Batycka, of ‘The Temporary Hegemonic Zone’, into a non- Seren Başoğul, Lutz Becker, Laura Beckner, hierarchical zone that is equally governable by its Ilaria Biotti, Bianca Bondi, Candice Breitz, whole community: from marginalized, undocumented, Oleksandr Burlaka, Nawal Chagar, Oliver Chanarin, stateless communities to migrants and citizens. Qëndresë Deda, Burak Dkilitaş, Claudio Donadel, Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani, Safia Dickersbach, Esra Dogan, Aljoša Dujmić, Goran Đorđević, Róza El-Hassan, Ghalia Elsrakbi (foundland Collective), Mounir fatmi, Amir fattal, Michael fehr, five women from Afghanistan as collective, Becket flannery, Jeanno Gaussi, Kendell Geers, Jingxin Geng, Laura Serejo Genes, Sarah Haddou, Anawana Haloba, Hamid, Hasan Hasan, Sharafuddin Hashami, Hands Off Our Revolution, Velija Hasanbegović, Winnie Herbstein, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Agata Kochaniewicz, Komunal, Don Lawrence, Sarah Lunaček, Dr Andrew Lane, Delaine Le Bas, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Laetitia Jeurissen, Youssef Limoud, Mahmoud Maktabi, Asja Mandić, Siavash Maraghechi, Mpole Samuel Masemola, Sithabile Mlotshwa, Sohrab Mohebbi, Wagma Momand, Victor Mutelekesha, Raafat Majzoub, Wafa Meri, Mohammed Mzaill, Ramen Naqshbandi, Izaat Noori, Olu Oguibe, Shafiq Omar, Reyhane Omidghaemi, Noorulah Oriakhil, Ahmet Öğüt, Danny Pagarani, Mario Pissara, Ognjen Radivojević, Payman Quasimian, Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, Lotte Schreiber, Megan Schwartz, Sejernader, Lerato Shadi, Shahin, Adnan Softić, Malina Suliman, Lama Takruri, Christina Thomopoulos, Barthélémy Toguo, Leontios Toumpouris, Two women from Afghanistan, Gerrie van Noord, Heidi Voet, Zahra, Vadim Zakharov, Salah Zater. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 10 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE

NOTES ON METHODOLOGY AND STRUCTURE Of SYMPOSIUMS / WORKSHOPS

Mara Ambrožič

This pavilion’s edition and exhibition They thereby involved, at the same time, Pavilion Team, ljubljana (Slovenia), courtesy workshop, aula Magna Tolentini, venice (Italy), topic, proposed by Zdenka Badovinac and three to four languages, and demanded NSK State Pavilion, august 2016 courtesy NSK State Pavilion, December 2016 Charles Esche, resulted in a complex head- si multaneous translation and mediation so Pavilion Team, Teatrino di Palazzo grassi, workshop, venice (Italy), courtesy NSK State on commitment to the understanding of as to stimulate a quality debate between venice (Italy), courtesy NSK State Pavilion, Pavilion, february 2017 contemporary European migratory policies. in dividuals with diverse experiences, and December 2016 As a civil and collateral activity to the to trigger their problem-solving capabilities. NSK State Pavilion Team with the workshop exhibition project, a series of workshops The groups involved had different cultural, Participants, venice (Italy), courtesy NSK State Pavilion, february 2017 took place along over the course of one ideological, economic, and generational year with multidisciplinary groups of (i.e. age) backgrounds; thus, the workshops participants, with the aim of creating a turned into a powerful methodological model of cooperation between the social de vice, unleashing a collective effort driven and cultural spheres. A specific methodo - by the need to create an intervention that logy was put in place to share experiences, goes beyond representation. and to propose and imagine new coopera - One of the biggest achievements and tive solutions of cooperation. Based on a outcomes of these workshops is ‘Beyond model of participation and horizontal sha - Borders’, a proposal for a transnational ring of resources, contacts, and knowledge, reception model for humanitarian protec - the five workshops were structured and tion applicants and sans papiers that implemented on the basis of different was written and amended by Delegate for mats, reflecting on the issue of termi - Claudio Donadel. nological borders that divide the world of art and the world of politics, as well as on the reciprocal understanding of issues rela - ted to socio-cultural engagement, humani - tarian protection, and a better understanding More information is available at: of migratory fluxes flows and traits. www.nsk-state-pavilion.org. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE 11

These are increasingly related and 2) Designing and testing, in Italy, by A second stage will extend it to a macro- subordinated to market globalization that a multi-professional team of lawyers, regional level, transferring the model BEYOND concentrates power and capital no longer educators, cultural-linguistic mediators, tested in Italy to 3 other local contexts in state and national institutions but in psychologists with cross-cultural training, characterized by being transit and supranational economic organizations, of a widespread territorial reception destination territories of the migration BORDERS which are profit-oriented and do not model for applicants and holders of routes to Europe via sea and land. protect human rights or the internationally International and Humanitarian Protection The plan is to transfer the model to recognized and so-called vulnerable in residential areas of EU citizens, in Austria, Germany and Slovenia. It’s Claudio Donadel categories, such as the applicants and compliance with the safeguards, rules and the stage of formalization of the Good holders of International Protection, measures provided for in International Practice model and of its transferability Unaccompanied foreign Minors and Law and by the guidelines of reception to different local contexts, whether Forced migrations and social inclusion, Trafficking Victims. and assistance in asylum application and they be countries of arrival, transit implementation of a transnational social inclusion, such as: financial or destination of the applicants and network to support a model of widespread And it is within this scenario and debate support; legal, medical, social and holders of International Protection. territorial reception for applicants and that operators active in the world of psychological counseling; literacy and holders of international and humanitarian contemporary and modern art decided civic and language training; professional The project includes a third and protection in EU countries. to support social workers with relevant training, housing and job placement. final phase, its transnationality: experience in managing reception the strengthening of the network of The project proposal is triggered by an arrangements for applicants and holders 3) Setting up a system of evaluation and families or of residential areas through initiative of the art world and, specifically, of International Protection and Victims certification of the widespread territorial the dissemination of the widespread of IRWIN, a branch of the movement de - of Trafficking in their efforts to promote reception model, namely the outcome of territorial reception model in other veloped in Slovenia during the dissolution and build a transnational network within the processes of social inclusion in terms EU territories. The implementation of former Yugoslavia, whose artists, through EU countries for the implementation of safeguards as well as of opportunities of the latter step will no longer be their actions and practices, formed the of an innovative territorial reception offered to the beneficiaries, and the impact subjected to technical, operational and “State without territory” and of Zdenka model for applicants and holders of and benefits for the local communities management aspects of reception of Badovinac and Charles Esche, curators of International Protection in shared or that have hosted them. applicants and holders of International the exhibition NSK State Pavilion – 57th nuclear households, complementary to and Humanitarian Protection in different Venice Biennale, who selected migration what already operated by EU countries, 4) Transferring the model tested in Italy European local contexts, but it will as the exhibition topic. and based on large or small shelters, to three other European territories in order depend on political will, or rather on whether widespread or not. to formalize it as Good Practice which the reception policy applied by the The recent debate developed among such can be implemented in any other context governments of the other EU countries, movements on the phenomenon of the “Beyond Borders” is a reception model within the EU, regardless of their status as and on the capability of civil society and current forced migration towards EU that, first of all, acts as a stimulus to the territories of access, transit or destination its intermediate bodies to direct it while countries, is characterized by considera - construction of an international protection of the current migration flows to Europe. participating in its set-up. Therefore, the tions of: its reasons, origin, issues related effort within the EU, overcoming the cur - transnational outreach of the widespread to border security, the management of rent territorial differences in treatment and 5) Disseminating the widespread territorial reception model will depend mixed migration flows and reception of the frequent incomplete implementation territorial reception model in other EU on the capability and willingness of the migrants in EU countries, the protection of of reception and protection measures countries, promoting Good Practice intermediate bodies of civil society such rights and of vulnerable groups, as well as provided for in International Law for through participation in international as the non-profit sector and the NGOs the diversified strategies adopted by EU applicants and holders of International or national events and art exhibitions, operating in those other EU countries countries pertaining to border security, re - Protection. To date these differentiations following the procedures designed and to strengthen and expand the reception ception of refugees and asylum seekers. are carriers of inequalities if not real tested in Italy and later formalized in network to the capacity foreseen by This current scenario suggests that, in the discrimination depending on the country Austria, Germany and Slovenia. this project (75 reception units). It will coming years, the issue of forced migra - where the migrant decides to come especially depend on their ability to tions could become a determining factor for forward or initiate the request for 6) Countering any emerging xenophobic make national and regional public both the orientation of future public policies International Protection. The project sets or populist discourse against applicants institutions more reactive and effective of EU countries, as well as for the destiny the social inclusion of the applicant or and holders of International and in including the widespread territorial and survival of the European Union itself. holder of International Protection as a Humanitarian Protection in the EU, reception model within their migration strategic and primary objective, instead setting up a transnational network of and reception policies of the applicants To date, the apparent absence of shared of subordinate or dependent to that 2,100 centers or host families, 75 and holders of International and and uniform policies among EU countries of the asylum request. in each EU country, so as to diversify Humanitarian Protection. in managing and governing mixed and strengthen the existing national migration flows to Europe by land and furthermore, “Beyond Borders” fights reception systems mainly based on “Beyond Borders” includes four artistic by sea as well as the different territorial the welfare culture that transforms the shelter centers or camps. projects; 1 connected to the experimental policies for the reception of refugees and migrant, regardless of their condition or phase in Italy and then 3 more, 1 in Austria , asylum seekers, are factors of crisis and form of granted protection, into a source 7) Promoting the creation of an EU 1 in Germany and 1 in Slovenia, aimed division among the governments of EU of easy money for those working in the International Protection from the at raising awareness of the migration states. In fact, they could be the possible social sector or into a propaganda tool for bottom up, from civil society to the phenomenon and the individuals involved reasons for the strengthening of European those politicians who have decided to EU institutions, to ensure that migrants in it, and including systematic actions to new nationalisms and populisms which broaden their electoral support leveraging applicants and holders of International facilitate the implementation of territorial fight for the exit of individual states from xenophobia and the costs of migrants at and Humanitarian Protection can be reception networks and to promote the the EU, and for those who demand the the expense of resources and services for supported by common and shared projects of widespread territorial receptio n. erection of walls as well as the restoration EU citizens. Instead, fosters an approach reception policies, regardless of of internal borders in defense of the centered on actively promoting the indi - the country entitled to evaluate The whole project is available at: identity and integrity of each nation. vidual, so that the opportunities offered and eventually grant International www.nsk-state-pavilion.org . Brexit is the outcome of this scenario, to migrants result in resources for their Protection status. as it has definitely found strength and beneficiaries as well as for the local com - ideological support among British munities where they are accommodated. The “Beyond Borders” project, in citizens, both in the much propagandized its most extensive framework, is fear of non-EU immigration as well as in The main objectives of this project are composed of 3 complex phases. the will to contain and regulate all those social, cultural and political as well as It expects an initial experimental migration flows of EU citizens to the UK, operational and managerial, and could test of a "widespread territorial in limiting the latter access to rights and be summarized as follows: reception project on a local level” social protection otherwise granted by to be carried out in Italy (as Italy, British citizenship. 1) Raising awareness among EU for current migration to Europe, is citizens on the phenomenon of forced at the same time country of entry, All these factors are the symptoms migration and on the vulnerable transit and destination of the Central and causes of the deep crisis currently categories involved in it through cultural Mediterranean route). It’s the phase of faced by all doctrines and subsequent events or participation in international recognition and identification of the policies followed by European countries, exhibitions with project proposals necessary operational procedures to especially where there is the need to designed, carried out and managed implement a widespread territorial jointly manage and govern complex by artists together with migrant reception of migrants seeking or holding and transnational social phenomena such applicants or holders of International International and Humanitarian Protection as the current mass migration to Europe. and Humanitarian Protection. in residential areas of Italian citizens. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 12 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE

NSK OffICERS

aMarJOTPal Kaur — My name aBrahaM OhaMhEN — My name charlES TawIah — My name is MErcy NwafOr — My name is is Amarjotpal Kaur and I come from is Abraham, I’m 27 years old. I come from Charles Tawiah, although it is misspelled Mercy, I’m 25 years old, I come from Pun jab, India. for three months and a Nigeria, where I no longer have neither in my residency permit: they wrote it Nigeria. I arrived in Italy at the end of half I have been living in Italy, in the city relatives or friends, and I arrived in Tewiah. I come from Ghana, I’m 19 October 2016 and I live in Padova as of Padova. I was very happy when I was Italy two years ago, in 2015. for the last years old. I arrived in Italy not even a a guest of a project for reception and chosen to work with this project because few months, I have been living with a year ago. I like the idea of participating integration of asylum seekers. I’m very I’m sure it will be a wonderful experience group of international protection seekers in the NSK State Pavilion because in happy to participate in the NSK State and I am glad to be part of it. I very much in fossalta, next to Portogruaro, in the this period of my life I feel like a square, Pavilion, first of all because it will allow like the idea of a state without borders, province of Venice, with a project organ - like Prato della Valle, the most beautiful me to interact with many different people where everybody can enter and live in ized by Co.Ge.S . I’m happy to have square in Padova. I feel like a square and, as I am very sociable, this is some - peace with everybody else. During my participated in your selection and even because that’s where people meet, thing I am very excited about, but most of difficult journey to reach Italy I always more to have been chosen, because this where people gather, study, dance, play. all because of the idea that this Pavilion had the sensation of being perceived as work will allow me to take part in this I would like to be a person that allows conveys: I am an asylum seeker and it a danger: I had to hide, I could not speak international experience with you, meet people to meet and to stay and play was very difficult for me to reach Italy. to anyone, and I had to run away from many people from all over the world and together. Maybe even more than a It was difficult and frightening to cross the police. I am not a dangerous person, make new friends, and also because I will “squareperson”, I would like to be a the borders of African countries in order but I have been treated as such at all be able to share my story with others. “bridgeperson”. I love to participate in to reach Libya; and the journey by sea border controls. I am now finally safe At the moment I can’t speak much Italian, this experience because I want people from Libya to Italy was just as hard. I can and I am grateful to the good people who because I started classes only 3 months to cross me in the same way as they say that I’ve risked my own life several gave me shelter. I am happy about this ago, but I’m studying every day and I’m pass a bridge. To go across my story, times to reach Europe and save myself job because I’ve had a lot of free time sure that when I start working, I will be what I lived, the efforts, the time, the from the dangerous situation in my home recently and I need to do something, very good at it! In my spare time, apart neverending journey, the prison, the country, so I think that it’s very important both for my body and for my mind. from studying Italian, I love to read, espe - hard labour. I want people to consider to conceive citizenship in an altogether During the selection I noticed that all cially history books, and to play football. me for what I am: an artwork. Even if it different way, one that allows people the people working in the Pavilion were I’ve done many jobs in my life, but the is only because I got this far and have who are in danger to travel to safety in very nice and kind. I really hope they one I’m very good at is the crafting of been through a lot. They issued me a an easier and safer way. Now that I’ve will be proud of my work and my nature. gates, windows, doors, stairs handrails, twoyear residency permit. In this time, come so far, my biggest desire is to In the future, I hope to remain in Italy, iron scaffoldings, which I create myself: I’ve learned how to make pizza and I obtain international protection so that find a job and keep living together with from designing through iron welding to cook it in many different ways, with I can build a life in Italy. I like Italy the person I love. varnishing. In the future, I would like to every imaginable ingredient (plantain, very much, this is my destination and have the opportunity to create a family beans, cabbage). I’ve painted black I’ve never thought to move elsewhere. with children and, before that, to find a job one of the walls in my house so that I’m working hard to learn Italian and where I can put all my skills to good use. I now have a blackboard, and every as soon as I speak it well enough, I want for this reason, I brought with me from evening I review everything I learned to find a job that allows me to pay the Nigeria a series of pictures of my own that day: new recipes, how to drive a rent and the bills. creations. If you want, I can show you forklift, a new word in Italian, or how some of my works that I always keep on flowers taste, and that it is beautiful my cell phone. I hope to meet you again to spend time outside when it’s sunny. soon and I’m sure that we will have a I would like to keep on learning. And wonderful experience together. everything I’ve been through may very well be a bridge, or a square, but not my home. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE 13

WHOM SHALL WE ASK fOR AMNESTY?

Róza El-Hassan

What do you want to take with you from What do you want to forget or delete from European heritage (as you understand it) the heritage of your own country (as you to help build a new and better world? understand it) to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? I would like to take with me the possi - bility of legal amnesty for artists, intellec - I would like to delete the moment when tuals, and all the human rights advocates books and documents were burned. By this and their families. I mean the despotic control of publications In spite of the topic “An Apology for in the broadest form. Burning data means Modernity”, I would like to bring with me, burning witnesses and eyewitnesses. into the future, formal Modernism and Burning books means burning freedom the security of the individual. Modernism, of thought. Destroying documents means to me, means the permission to think, destroying any possibility of justice. imagine and combine, as well as the per - further, I ask not to chase and detain Do you still feel protected by your EU Sonia Delaunay and two friends in robert Delaunay’s mission to be fair and autonomous. All intellectuals, artists and human rights passport? Or are you mentally connected studio, rue des grands-augustins, Paris (1924) © these ideas are well expressed in artworks advocates. I ask a broad amnesty for to those communities, friends, families, Bib liothèque nationale de france, Paris by Kazimir Malevič, and many other artists authors and public voices. In exchange, children who are shelled at home? Don’t (I do disagree with them on this point, like Sonia Delaunay, one of my favorites. I offer to stop chanting: «People want you live in permanent desperation and because I believe that there are privileged The message of this image could be the the fall of the regime». I will stop all this fear? How much money do you have to points in the system, which have a higher lack of restriction of thinking patterns and, but, in exchange, I ask for full amnesty pay so that the international criminals position in the hierarchy, and there are also by this, the freedom and maybe also the and for elections. protect these human beings, at home? pyramids above the rhizome-spider-web.) legal security of the individual. further, I would like to add one more So my question is: whom shall we ask The question arises: which microphone The opposite of freedom of thought is question to the NSK Questionnaire: for amnesty and peace? Which Govern - can we grab today to ask for a system tyranny, which comes with arbitrary ment? The President of Europe or the war- change, for reforms, for amnesty or to in - decisions and restrictions to think. All this Whom shall we ask for amnesty? torn homelands? Shall we ask the local form the public and to ask for their support does not mean that rationality, enlighten - police of our district for amnesty? In this in case of injustice or, not least, to protect the ment and modernity are the only levels of Whom should we address this question case, this means mercy and compassion: people? Shall we ask the social platforms? intellectual or mental reality. It means that to? At first, the answer seems to be quite shall we ask them not to find and arrest If it comes to a trial, most of the evidence the lack of restriction to think is the only obvious: to the President of the State, to us, if accusations are false? Or shall we for – or against – an accusation against a social basis of the well-being – in terms of the Ruler (a King or a Sheikh, depending ask the Court? Or the Ministry of Inner subject is delivered on the so-called digital legal protection – both for the individual on the case) or to the Government. But it’s Affairs? Or the Ministry of foreign social media, internet. It is not printed on and the human beings. not that simple. Let’s take Lebanon, for Affairs? Shall we ask a rich relative? paper, or stored as analogue film anymore. This type of well-being is not only about instance. About 4 million Lebanese people An uncle, a father, a boss, a godfather It is stored on the servers. The system ad - the legal security of the individual, but it live there (Wikipedia), while about five or a guardian angel? Could it happen that ministrator has access to the data; this means is something broader: the right to liberty of times more Lebanese people live abroad we end up victims of human trafficking that he has the power to make changes. movement, the freedom of thought and (8-14 million); the biggest community is although we have EU citizenship? Servers are not national, but global or pri - ex pression, the health of the individual, his in Brazil (7 millions) but many are also Or shall we ask the media – news, vate. Shall we ask the system admins for security to posses all his – or her – organs living in Canada or in Europe. Despite radio and the internet – to ask it for us? our amnesty? They often have the key role. (the kidneys and the uterus, as well as his this, Lebanon has 6 million inhabitants – And what about the newspapers? And the But where are the? In Ireland where you can or her imagination) and the right to a basic and not 4 – because one in every five free press? The best is to ask the press to find big servers? Or in California? If there is income that would cover his primary needs Lebanese inhabitants is from Syria, most support amnesty for human rights advo - a crime on facebook and the involved victim (food, water, heating, education, transport). of the others are Palestinians and a few cates and simple people. But, in this case, lives in Hungary, it happens that Californian other nationalities. We could also list who will protect the journalists from laws are valid, as long as it happened on the What do you want to forget or delete from numbers of Syrians or Iraqis abroad. being killed in the war regions? Or from virtual territory of facebook. European heritage (as you understand it) The protection – both mental and legal losing their jobs and sponsors at home if Or shall we ask our friends and family, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? – of our lives is mainly provided by our they dig too deep into the power struc - our personal network, to help us with in - family and friends (and seldom by the ture’s status quo ? Of course, the free press formal support? A father, an uncle, a boss? World Wars, the tyranny of state socialism, welfare state, as in Sweden or Norway). and the media play a really important role. An informal network, friends. Starting and the Holocaust, the darkest side of history. The families from regions like the Middle The power of the public is expressed from the bottom of the power pyramid? East are torn apart; some of them live in through the elections and maybe even Step by step? What about those, whose What do you want to take with you from democratic societies, others don’t. Those more by the public opinion. The free network is not influential enough and the heritage of your own country (as you who live as migrants outside the Syrian war press plays the role to inform people never reaches the President, the Court or understand it) to help build a new and regions – in Europe, Brazil or in the about the social reality and all that they the Police? The list of questions is end - better world? Arabian-Persian Gulf – are not safe at all: cannot witness. less. The legal system is divided into leg - since they are migrating without the In 1956, the Revolutionary Youth did n’t islative, juristic and executive power in Since I have two countries in my back - proper citizen rights, they are possible storm the Parliament first of all, but order to protect the individual and to not ground, I would like to take the historical victims of human rights violation. This Hungarian Radio. It took the microphone centralize the power. The executive force experience of reconciliation – as it happened may seems quite obvious, but it is not the of that media channel – the only one at that is local: think about the policeman, with in the 19 th century in the Habsburg Empire only problem: even after receiving a EU time – and announced the system change. the lowest salary in the chain, who has to and in Hungary after the 1848 Revolution citizenship or permanent residency, these Today there are hundreds and thousands arrest you. He follows an order. Or the – to other countries. Even if the Hungarian people do not have the same safe and of media channel to influence the public doctor who has to treat you, if you’re de - Revolution was lost, it was followed by convenient legal situation as a native Eu - opinion. It is hard to imagine, that in that clared mentally ill. Who decides, locally, many discussions and reforms within the ropean citizen. This happens because time there was no daily TV broadcast, no if you will be treated for mental illness existing power and, after years of patient some illegitimate powers outside the internet etc… Hungarian Radio was The caused by the trauma of war with coun - negotiations, the region was able to flourish. wel fare state can put pressure on them, Public Voice. One voice. The mainstream. selling and soft natural therapies like I always wish that something similar could and also because their political voice, their In that moment, to storm the radio build - sports, yoga, music and herbs, or if you happen in Syria and in other countries. improved legal situation and the strength ing and to grab the microphone meant will be just tied down to a bed with plas - I ask governments for amnesty for all of their network is still responsible for to take over the power in the country. tic, detained in a dirty clinic behind bars intellectuals and human rights activists the fate of their relatives, who live in war We used to criticize the mainstream and injected with unknown brain serums who left their countries, who were forced regions without any legal protection. media; today we no longer have one way that you would not want? Executive to spend their lives migrating or being Imagine this kind of situation: you live broadcast TV and radio, but the web. power may also be the postman, who silenced as inner dissidents, detained in in Europe, but a relative of yours is in a In A Thousand Plateaus , Deleuze and brings you an important letter or docu - prisons or in mental hospitals, isolated by prison where hundreds, thousands of Guattari compare today’s information ment, and who decides – following an poverty and unemployment, due to the re - people are killed and many of them are channel to the rhizome, a dense web order or being corrupted – if you should strictions on working. I ask all the govern - tortured. Or in a village, or district of a of information channels, which is differen t receive the necessary documents that al - ments for amnesty for all freethinkers. city, which might be targeted at any time. from the earlier pyramid structure. lows you to legally stay in a country, or if NSK STaTE PavIlION — 14 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE

the documents from the Court or the police administration THE fINAL COUNTDOWN: – such as letters, passports and bank cards – will ever reach your mailbox. It gets even more complicated with EUROPE, your phone and net communications. Is it executive power, which allows you to talk to anybody locally? Is it REfUGEES AND the big T-Com building around the corner? Or is it a THE LEfT hacker? Or many hackers? What happens, if all your com - munication channels are cut off, all your passwords stolen and you are no longer in control of what you write, say, Jela Krečič send, delete or which calls you make and which you re - ceive? The executive power can also be your boss, who There is a commonly accepted notion on the political Left pays you, or even a family member, who is forced to ac - that Europe's response to hundreds of thousands of refugees cuse you, since he can be blackmailed by financial tools or was and is unacceptable. While the Left is mostly concerned even by dislocated military authorities. Or a family, who is with the rise of right-wing populism, which is gaining its forced to sell a young girl to an elder man or to arrange a power from the supposed threat of the immigrants, its own marriage with someone who holds a EU passport – no humanitarian and philanthropic approach towards Europe’s matter if, between the two of them, there is love or not. newcomers is no less inadequate. There is a moral obligation to help. I did not mention those Eleven texts by radical Leftist thinkers try to disentangle fathers, who are forced to sell their organs – mainly kid - this mess; they provide a sharp analysis of today’s geopo - neys – because otherwise they could not support their fam - liti cal situation with emphasis on political developments in ilies. All these things happen locally; they are local. If you Europe and on the shift in the global ideological frame. are politically accused or chased, endangered in your This shift is traced back to several historical events, home country or in the country where you have a perma - most importantly to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the predom - nent residency, you can escape immediate executive pun - inance of neoliberal capitalism, and also the incapacity ishment: poverty by prohibition of salary payment, prison, of the political Left to respond to post-Cold-War political shelling, death. You are forced to change country by be - antagonisms. The volume ruthlessly debunks many of the coming an asylum seeker. But your escape might be lim - flagship ideas of the liberal Left, such as identity politics, ited in time, since legal and legislative powers are not post-colonialism, and political correctness. really local – and thus related to a specific country – but, Edited and introduced by Jela Krečič. Although different thinkers take different approaches, often, they are global. The juristic examples are much the result is a common insight that a different kind of more complex: in their natural state, in fact, they are basi - Contributors: Boris Buden, Mladen Dolar, Leftist struggle is needed, one that does not overlook the cally local: the court and the judges are appointed by your Saroj Giri, Boris Groys, Agon Hamza, central role of classical concepts, such as struggle, and nation/state. The laws and the latest rules are files kept in Jamil Khader, Robert Pfaller, frank Ruda, the importance of creating a universalist political frame digital clouds and servers; this means that – physically – Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupančič. for dealing with major problems. laws and regulations can be stored and edited everywhere: in Antarctica, on a satellite, or in another country. Regula - tions are no longer printed and permanent:lawyers sub - She currently holds a PhD research position scribe to updates, just like software. Justice is a software. IrwIN charlES ESchE in international cooperation, curating and new The IRWIN group was founded in Ljubljana Charles Esche is director of Van Abbemuseum, The globalization of the legal system and the suprana - institutional policies at the LJMU University (Slovenia) in 1983. Its members are Dusan Eindhoven; professor of contemporary art and of Liverpool. She has lectured on art theory tional courts are, of course, nothing new: the United Na - Mandic, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman curating at Central Saint Martins, London and and the culture industry as fellow professor tions is a supranational organization and all the empires Uranjek and Borut Vogelnik. With their co-director of Afterall Journal and Books . alongside Marta Kuzma, a nd served as a visi - artistic practice they actively and concretely He teaches on the Exhibition Studies MRes and colonial states have globalized systems. What has ting lecturer at the Sciences Po University in intervened in social and historical activities course at CSM, and at Jan van Eyck Academie, changed is the intensity of the interconnections, as well as Paris. Ambrožič has participated in the deve - in the decade that redefined the status of art Maastricht. He (co) curated Jakarta Biennale their omnipresence and their speed. Legislative situations st lopment of several international organisations in Eastern Europe (Kapital, NSK Embassy 2015; 31 Sao Paulo Biennial, 2014; U3 and networks, as well as working as a consul - are the most complex and dynamic. Legislators are those Moscow, Transnacionala, East Art Map Triennale, Ljubljana, 2011; Istanbul Biennale, tant for the Ministère de la Communication projects). Recent exhibitions and projects 2005; Gwangju Biennale, 2002 amongst other who make the rules. The voters – who should delegate the de Paris. She has published texts and edited include: NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst), international exhibitions. He is chair of politicians – are often lost, migrated, in exile and state - several books and has also acted as a curator From Kapital to Capital , Museo Reina CASCO, Utrecht. He received the 2012 less, without a possibility to vote. The elite often sit in a for various projects, such as Slovene Pavi - Sofia , Madrid in 2017 and Van Abbemuseum, Princess Margriet Award and the 2014 CCS lion: Tobias Putrih , 52nd Venice Biennale in private plane; influence exists here and there. Eindhoven and Garage Museum of Contem - Bard College Prize for Curatorial Excellence. 2007, States of Opacity : 12thEdition of the The state without nation might become a place where porary Art, Moscow in 2016; IRWIN Planting Dakar Biennale in 2015. Seeds , Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art, people only live as independent from their national iden - ahMET ÖğüT In 2016 she initiated the model Libraries of Gdansk, Poland, 2016; NSK (Neue Slowenische tity and their legal status (citizenship). This would be the Öğüt, born in 1981 in Diyarbakır (Turkey), the Future at the Centre Pompidou (Paris). Kunst), From Kapital to Capital , Moderna is an artist who lives and works in Berlin end of all justice. We need to protect the unity of citizen - galerija, Ljubljana, 2015; Dreams and and Amsterdam. Working across a variety ship and the nation state or, to be precise, the state where Conflicts , Galleria Civica di Modena, of media , Öğüt has had institutional solo exhi - SlavOJ žIžEK all citizens have the same legal status (no paperless peo - Modena, 2014; Former West , HKW, Berlin, bitions around the world including SALT Art Slavoj Žižek is a Christian atheist, Hegelian ple, no apartheid…); the nation state must not mean eth - 2013; A Bigger Splash , Tate Modern, London, Space, Istanbul (2016); Van Abbemuseum, philosopher, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and 2012–13; NSK Passport Office , Museum Communist political theorist. His work tries nic homogeneity, even if a common language would be Eindhoven (2015); Chisenhale Gallery, London of Modern Art (MOMA), 2012; Manifesta, (2015); Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2012); The to refound dialectical materialism through a more than useful. Some politicians suggest – and build – Genk, 2012; The Global Contemporary. MATRIx Program at the UC Berkeley Art Lacanian reading of German Idealism. He fences because of this. Still, there is no democracy or The Art Worlds after 1989 , ZKM/Center Museum (2010); and Kunsthalle Basel (2008). also deals with the critical diagnostics of con - human rights protection in any country – including the for Art and Media Karlsruhe, 2011; The He has also participated in numerous group temporary capitalism and of the twists and turns of today's ideology. He works as a Re - European ones – if someone does not care about human International, MACBA, 2011; State in Time , exhibitions, including 11th Gwangju Biennale Kunsthalle Krems, 2009; NSK Passport (2016); the British Art Show 8 (2015 –2017); searcher at Birkbeck College, University of rights and stable legal systems, if there is no protection Holders , Taipei Biennial, Taipei Art Museum On/OFF , Centre Pompidou, Paris London; Visiting Professor at NYU, New for the citizens and if there is no peace outside the tradi - Museum, 2008; Birds of a Feather , (2016); 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale York City, and at Kyung Hee University, Seoul. tional welfare state. This is what I wanted to show with Akbank Art Center, Istanbul, 2006–07. (2014); Performa 13, the fifth Biennial of Among his latest publications: Disparities (London, 2016), Antigone (London, 2016), my question: «Whom shall I ask for amnesty?» This is a Visual Art Performance, New York (2013); the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); and the 5th The Courage of Hopelessness (London, 2017). possible question to the reader and to NSK, IRWIN, ZDENKa BaDOvINac Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2008). Zdenka Badovinac is a curator and writer, Slavoj Žižek and Zdenka Badovinac, whose writings I re - Öğüt has completed several residency pro - JEla KrEČIČ who has served since 1993 as Director of the grams, including programs at the Delfina Jela Krečič is a philosopher, journalist and spect and like very much and to whom I am thankful for Moderna galerija in Ljubljana, comprised foundation and Tate Modern (2012); IASPIS, writer. In 2008 she obtained a PhD at the the initiative and for the invitation. since 2011 of two locations: the Museum of Sweden (2011); and Rijksakademie van Department of Philosophy, University of Modern Art and the Museum of Contempo - I would like to ask the reader to support amnesty in Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (2007–2008). Ljubljana, with her research project Philosophy , rary Art Metelkova. In her work, Badovinac the name of the many Syrians and people from war re - He has taught at the Dutch Art Institute, Fantasy, Fil m. In her theoretical work she highlights the difficult processes of redefin - gions, and from all countries in the Middle East, but also Netherlands (2012); the finnish Academy of deals with philosophy of art, contemporary art ing history alongside different avant-garde fine Arts, finland (2011–ongoing); and Yildiz and film theory. She has co-edited books on in Europe and in my country, Hungary.Amnesty for all traditions within contemporary art. Badov - Teknik University, Turkey (2004 –2006). He is contemporary TV-series and on film director people who are chased and live in fear, for those who are inac’s first exhibition to address these issues currently working on a duo exhibition with Ernst Lubitsch. film comedy with its political was Body and the East—From the 1960s to human rights advocates and for those who just happened Goshka Macuga at Witte de With Center for and ethical dimensions is one of the recurring the Present (1998). She also initiated the to be in the wrong place or are witnesses of crimes. Often, Contemporary Art and his upcoming solo shows themes of her analysis. In 2012, she gave a first Eastern European art collection, 2000+ at KOW gallery in Berlin and Kunsthalle lecture titled Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre: when we happen to be in such situations, we have no Arteast. One her most important recent Char lottenburg in Copenhagen (2017). The Theatre of the Living Concept during the exact person, or institute, whom we can address. projects is NSK from Kapital to Capital: international symposium “Neue Slowenische And now I ask the Delegates: «Do you need amnesty?» Neue Slowenische Kunst – The Event of Mara aMBrOžIČ Kunst: A Historical Perspective”, which took Only now, at the end of this text, I realize that my the Final Decade of Yugoslavia , Moderna Mara Ambrožič is an expert in strategies place at the Tate Modern (London). As a jour - galerija, 2015. Badovinac was Slovenian question might have been completely wrong. We do not of cooperation, a curator, and cultural nalist she covers mainly cultural themes from Commissioner at the Venice Biennale from critic. She holds an MA in Visual Studies literature, contemporary art to film and telev i- need amnesty. We need states and a global system where 1993 to 1997 and 2005, Austrian Commis - from IUAV University of Venice, sion, but is best known for her interview with we can live without fear, places where masses – who are sioner at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 2002 where she studied with Giorgio Agamben, Julian Assange. Last year she published her not guilty – do not need to ask for any amnesty. and the President of CIMAM, 2010-13. Angela Vettese, franco Bifo Berardi. first novel None Like Her. NSK STaTE PavIlION — 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE 15

NSK STATE VENICE PAVILION IN VIENNA – THINKING EUROPE

As a parallel project to the NSK State Pavilion in Venice, NSK State in Time will be opening a pavilion in Vienna, during Wiener festwochen. The NSK State Venice Pavilion in Vienna – Thinking Europe , curated by Birgit Lurz and Wolfgang Schlag, will present the installation Europa by Ramesch Daha and Anna Jermolaewa and a temporary NSK passport office. As the NSK State Pavilion in Venice, the pavilion space in Vienna includes two parts. The first part ‘An Apo - logy’, written on behalf of the liberal western world to refugees, as well as to those who were unable to chose not to flee, was developed together with scientific con - sultant Tomaž Mastnak. The second part, a room of ‘global disorder’, presents the responses of around 100 different citizens, migrants and stateless individuals to questions about European and personal heritage. These responses shape the content of the installation Europa in the second space. Inside the pavilion is a temporary NSK passport office. Together with the Viennese NGO Einander, asylum seekers run the passport office and guide visitors and potential new citizens through the exhibition and talk about their experience of migration and their life in Austria. The office will issue NSK passports to all applicants who apply and Ramesch Daha, born 1971 in Teheran, Iran. Anna Jermolaewa, born 1970 in St. Petersburg, Russia. are willing to engage in a dialogue. Comprehensive historial research is characteristic in Anna Jermolaewa analyzes stereotypical roles in regu - Ramesch Daha’s artistic method which proceeds with latory hierarchies and totalitarian power apparatuses. Europa – An Open Archive of Stories an awareness of the constructed nature of history and Her installations, photograph s and videos reveal power of the subjectivity of the historical narrative. and control mechanisms in political systems, showing for the NSK State Venice Pavilion in Vienna – Thinking In her preferred artistic media painting, drawing, video, how they result in shared collective and individual Europe the artists Ramesch Daha and Anna Jermolaewa and installation she confronts the viewer with the ways of experiencing the world. The found and staged have created the installation Europa , based on the results discrepancy between individual and institutionalized images are the distillate of a critical analysis of society, of 100 questionnaires. history in order to question the complexity of the which, developed in short consecutive sequences, Individuals, who came to Austria from non-european present, the essence of which becomes apparent stands for the dependencies and forms of repression of countries for different reasons, were asked to answer through her historical digressions. Ramesch Daha the individual. Anna Jermolaewa lives and works in general and personal questions about their individual lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Vienna, Austria. perspectives on Europe, such as: What does homeland mean for you? , What does Europe mean for you? , What should a future Europe look like? .

Based on the results of the question What is your favorite artwork? the artists set up an ‘imaginary museum’ of paintings like a checkpoint between the Egypt and Palestinian border, a Heavy Metal lyric, The Kiss by Gustav Klimt or the Eiffel Tower. from this archive of answers emerges an image that is at once universal and extremely personal. Instead of merging the answers with conventional narrative forms, the installation opens up a variety of connections and histories. It is a critical commentary on ‘European Heritage’, and, at the same time, raises questions about the continent’s future. The installation is an open archive of experiences, ideas, and hopes.

anna Jermolaewa, Vincent Van Gogh, ramesch Daha, Checkpoint , oil on Selbstbildnis mit verbundenem Ohr / canvas, 18 x 24 cm, 2017 Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm, 2017 ramesch Daha, Eiffelturm / Eiffel Tower , oil on canvas, 24 x 30 cm, 2017 NSK STaTE PavIlION — 16 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE

MAP

NSK STaTE PavIlION 11 May – 15 July 2017 (Opening Thursday, 11 May, at 8pm)

PalaZZO ca’ TrON Iuav university of venice Santa croce, 1957

Nearest vaporetto: San Stae (vaporetto line 1) free admission STAZIONE FERROVIARIA PALAZZO VAPORETTO Monday – Saturday: 11am – 7pm CA’ TRON SAN STAE (closed on Sundays, and on 2 June 2017) P.LE ROMA FONDAZIONE PRADA RIALTO PuBlIc lEcTurE TOLENTINI By SlavOJ žIžEK ARSENALE Thursday, 11 May 2017 at 5pm aula MagNa, Tolentini SAN MARCO Iuav university of venice ACCADEMIA Santa croce, 191

Nearest vaporetto: GIARDINI Piazzale roma (vaporetto line 1 and many others)

how to get there information is available on the website.

NSK STaTE PavIlION — General Coordination: Project partners are NSK STaTE vENIcE Producer: IRWIN NEwSPaPEr 57Th vENIcE BIENNalE Sanja Kuveljić Bandić Galerija Gregor Podnar, PavIlION IN vIENNa – 2017 Berlin; Ministry of Culture ThINKINg EurOPE Co-producer: Editor: Mara Ambrožič Managing Editors: of Republic of Slovenia; MGML – The Museum Exhibition: Lucia Coco, Cédric fauq Wiener festwochen GesmbH, ARCC.art Open Space, and Galleries of Ljubljana Managing Editor: Palazzo Ca’ Tron, IUAV Vienna; Municipality of 16 May – 11 June 2017 Lucia Coco University of Venice, Book Editor: Ljubljana – Cultural Depar - Project partners Vienna: 11 May – 15 July 2017 Jela Krečič tment; IUAV University of Public lecture: AK Wien, Copy Editing: Venice; e-flux, New York; Slavoj Žižek, ARCC.art, Miha Šuštar, Jane Warrilow Inaugural lecture by Artistic Team: James Gallery/The Center 20 May 2017, 6.30 pm Verein Einander Slavoj Žižek, 11 May 2017, Chiara Gaspardo, for the Humanities, NYU, www.festwochen.at Graphic Design: Aula Magna Tolentini Andrej Škufca New York; Co.Ge.S. – With support of: Archive Appendix Cooperative for immigration Curators: AK Wien, Commissioners: Graphic Identity: policies, Mestre; NSK State Birgit Lurz, Bundeskanzleramt Print run: 10.000 copies IRWIN (Dušan Mandič, Archive Books and Reserve, New York. Wolfgang Schlag Kunst und Kultur, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, New Collectivism Slowenisches Published by IRWIN Roman Uranjek and The project was also made Based on the project Kulturinformationszentrum Borut Vogelnik) State Art field Research: possible by the generous NSK State Pavilion — in Österreich SKICA. Printed in Ljubljana, 2017 Tevž Logar support of RPS d.o.o., 57th Venice Biennale 2017 Curators: Ljubljana; KD Group d.d.; commissioned by Zdenka Badovinac, Web Developers: VO-KA, Ljubljana; IRWIN, curated Charles Esche Roberto Moro, Jurij Rejec Stratkom d.o.o., Ljubljana; by Charles Esche UBT University, Prishtina; and Zdenka Badovinac Project Director: Web Master: OCA Office for Contemporar y Mara Ambrožič Tomaž Lešnjak Art, Oslo, Norway; Pavilion Installation: of Republic of Kiribati. Ramesch Daha, Installation: The Pavilion is commissioned Anna Jermolaewa Ahmet Öğüt and produced by IRWIN, Press Agency: co-produced by the Museum Rees & Company, London Managerial Consultancy: Scientific Consultant: and Galleries of Ljubljana Chloe Nahum Mara Ambrožič Tomaž Mastnak and co-organised by Temple [email protected] Productions and Društvo +44 (0)7742 239 178 Producer Vienna: NSK informativni center. +44 (0)20 3137 8776 Wiener festwochen