Ways to (re)position the Balkans, in relation to the Non-Aligned Movement with Bayryam Bayryamali and Jelena Viskovic in The Mosaic Rooms, London
by Amina Ahmed
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Dates: 7PM, 10th May, 2023 |
Location: |
Bayryam Bayryamali and Jelena Viskovic, the duo behind Old Mountain Assembly, a body assembled for the purpose of connecting speculative practices from the Balkans and Beyond, announce the 4th iteration of their reading unit — Vocabulary of Multitudes, co-curated with Akinsola Lawanson at The Mosaic Rooms, London on the 10th May, 2023.
Looking at ways to (re)position the Balkans, in relation to the Non-Aligned Movement, Bayryamali and Viskovic will explore topics such as Yugocentrism in relation to the broad history of the movement, and open up critical ways to talk about big ideas, global dreams and counterfactual 'unworlding' through texts sourced by the Assembly and The Mosaic Rooms’ Bookshop.
Continuously on the move, Vocabulary of Multitudes pops up in various spaces with diasporic traits and engages in a dialogue with its audiences in a loose, semi-formal manner through reading together. In their first three reading events, Bayryamali and Viskovic explored topics around building and dismantling worlds in relation to the notion remembrance, political justice and geopolitics of the 'periphery', through the lens of historical cybernetic developments in the region, and pop-folk culture phenomena that transgress through borders. We questioned the emergence of 'white enclosures', looking at overlapping worlds where cultural encounters happen instead.
If you’re in London you can book your space here.
Image: Scan from Non-Aligned Cross-Cultural Pollination: A Short Graphic Novel by Bojana Piškur and Đorđe Balmazović
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Bayryam Bayryamali (1997, BG) is a London based (Bulgarian)Turkish visual researcher, programmer and organiser. His practice deals with issues of new world (b)orders, il/legal identities in the Balkans and beyond. He is an Education Manager at Magnum Photos – a photography co-operative – and co-runs the Old Mountain Assembly – a programming space for worlding and futuring a transitional and decolonial perspectives in South/East Europe. |
| Akinsola Lawanson (UK/NG) is a British-Nigerian multidisciplinary artist based in London. Using different mediums, such as moving image, video game engines and motorised sculptures, their practice examines a variety of themes, including relational systems, digital technologies and process philosophy. |
| Jelena Viskovic (DE/HR) is an artist and designer. Her work focuses on games, leisure spaces, the narratives they produce through time and place, and their relationship to memory. She uses simulation and game mechanics as non-linear, narrative devices and ornamental systems built into sculptural and spatial works, responding to new and old technologies, social organisational platforms, and public spaces. Viskovic was born in Yugoslavia; along with her work with sculpture and digital media, she interrogates cultural and counter-cultural, transnational and multi-ethnic identity and memory in relation to the Balkans. She is a lecturer in digital media and game design at UCL. |