How do we speak of the Balkans
Participatory exhibition, Berlin, 2022
Exhibiting the SCUB Glossary, a vocabulary aiming to resituate our understanding of the Balkan area. The audience was able to collect the printed pages, creating their own catalogue.
In a living and interactive format, we shared some of the outcomes of the Participatory Art-Based Research “Myths and Misconceptions”, by inviting the audience to bring new nuances, impressions and understandings while pondering and acquiring new words to reflect on how and why we speak of the “Balkans”.
The space of the staircase at ZK/U turned into a pop-up exhibition curated by Enrico Tomassini, Milly Reid, Miodrag Kuc. Visitors could experience some alternative definitions about the Balkans, in the form of large and small format prints.
The OpenSCUBglossary is a growing vocabulary that aims to resituate our understanding of the region. The words we use in our everyday culture shape the ways we think and talk about the Balkans. Rooted in the words and expressions uncovered during the project’s research phase, Myths and Misconceptions, the glossary invites us to imagine and speak of the ‘Balkans’ otherwise: to recognise it through its language, turns of phrases, and visual meaning.
The pages of the glossary are imagined to form a new cartography of the “Balkans” on the wall. The audience could collect the printed pages of their choice and assemble their own glossary, which was put together always in different combinations.
The first definition to open the exhibition was the term to balkan which is for us to think and act in a continuous pursuit of reclaiming the term Balkan, of becoming capable of celebrating, respecting and owning the Balkan experience, collective creations and ways of being.
Ex. I’m tired of doubting everything Balkan and seeing it as less, I want to start balkaning.”
Download the Glossary print layout here:
