22_23 WAAAW > Conflicting Times
Based on the year's topic of artistic strategies within and against war, some of us initiated, organized, curated and exhibited in Conflicting Times, a pop-up show that was curated by Kata Martincsák and hosted by Contemporary Matters Studio in Seestadt, Vienna. Conflicting Times
14.–15.01.2023
Sonnenallee 26, 1220 WienCurated by Kata Martincsák Co-curated and designed by Anna Weberberger WithBíborka Janka Béres, Dennis Michael Khieffer Beviz, Lea Felicitas Blachfellner, Tomiris Dmitrievskikh, Sabrina Hauzinger, Margarita Gimaeva, Lorenzo Iannantuoni, Margarita Ivanova, Ammar Khadour, Shahrzad Khanmohammadi, Kata Martincsák, Celeste Montales, Irina Müller, Nikita Narder, Louisa Plundrich, Spicy Princess (Annamária Kmetyó), Alexandra Rauschgold, Michaela Všetečková, Anna Weberberger, Lorenz Willer
It’s easy to distance yourself from the conflict that happens somewhere else. On another continent, in another country, in another time zone. A bomb explodes hours later in Europe and lasts until we scroll down. What we have taken for granted is now turned inside out. What do individual will and choice matter when a conflict that transcends the personal scale erupts and changes our daily lives? What do the others matter when we are still able to live our daily lives? When things we take for granted no longer are, we can accept or resist the apathy of a generation who has lived in peace their whole life. We can find ourselves in conflict with our homeland, our cultural heritage, and our everyday activities. We can stand in solidarity with our own and other communities. We can share peace and grief, trying to take care of ourselves and others in Conflicting Times. In order to negotiate, we need to face ourselves and the past, which continues to determine our present. Those affected by conflict will not only come from war zones. Everyone who has ever walked past a historical monument or looked at a symbol of National Socialism has experienced the ghost of European conflict. Everyone who has ever walked in a city, on land, has put their foot on war. Some are lucky enough to not even feel it under their soles, some are shaken by it every day.Amid these Conflicting Times artists and space&design strategists from different geographical and social-political backgrounds overcome distance. They create a transit zone of resistance, acceptance, dialogue, doubt and fear. They pause, propose and process experiences of war and conflict, now and in the past, to form discussions out of chaos. Between the individual and collective contributions to Conflicting Times, finding our roles and positions is not without contradictions. If our future, as we start to believe, won’t exist in the way we imagined it, we need to rebuild the utopias we have lost. What better place to do this than in an artificial city named Seestadt?