tranzit.sk/

22 March, 2024
5 pm – 8:30 pm

The event will be held in English.


In his lecture, Kuba Szreder, author of the book The ABC of the Projectariat, will present his insightful analyses of the contemporary art world which condemns many artists and cultural workers to precarity and other problems. He will also offer his thoughts on how to transform or do away with its dysfunctional mechanism. The lecture is the first in the series of events entitled Towards other possible artworlds. However, in response to the current situation in Slovakia, where the threat of autocratic domination looms over the artistic sphere, the event will also include another layer. Szreder will present examples of art workers’ self-organization and protests that have unfolded in recent years. He will discuss his own engagement in what he calls as “postartistic practices” with the hope that they can be an interesting source of inspiration for the Slovak art community, which itself is actively mobilizing for resistance. The evening will conclude with an open discussion forum, where everyone will have the opportunity to share their thoughts, questions, and suggestions.



The ABC of the Projectariat.
Aleatoric performance and assembly about precarious conditions of artistic labour

In his performative lecture Kuba Szreder will discuss precarious conditions of artistic labour. Artistic projectariat, people who do projects to make a living, roam the global art world, where enthusiasm is paired with exclusion, mobility with poverty, self-entrepreneurialism with anxiety. Szreder will dissect the ups and downs of this unpredictable existence in an aleatoric performance, following a random selection of entries from his recently published book The ABC of the Projectariat. Starting with “A is for Aftermath (of the pandemic)”, and concluding with “Y is for You are Not Alone”, this handbook addresses both a daily grind of projectarians and systemic conditions of their labour, a harsh reality of winner-takes-it-all economy, structurally marked by competition and exclusion. Practical modes of resistance devised and tested by the radicalized sectors of the projectariat, such as patainstitutional creativity, dark matter acceleration, interdependence and other forms of mutual support will be also discussed. Szreder’s performance will be followed by an open discussion contributing to the ongoing debates on art and labour.



Duckrabbits against fascism.
Postartistic practices in the context of rising authoritarianism

In this part of the evening Szreder will discuss the cases of the Consortium of Postartistic Practices and the Office for Postartistic Services – two Polish initiatives he has co-initiated and animated since 2016. He will reflect upon postaristic practices (Jerzy Ludwiński) that have emerged in Poland in the wake of the authoritarian turn in Polish politics and unfolding culture wars, that drastically changed the context in which art is made and distributed. The duckrabbit is a symbol adopted by the Office and the Consortium to denote the double status of postartistic practices that apply artistic imagination beyond the confines of mainstream art world. He will discuss some of the examples gathered in the online archive krolikokaczki.pl to address both aesthetical and sociological aspects of postartistic practices and interdependent modes of organisation adopted by postartistic practitioners.