All That We Have in Common

“I say no to Identity theft. I say no to who you think I am. I say no to what you think I should look like. The gaze that is put upon us is disrupted.” —Delaine Le Bas

Curated by: Marki Romanista, Mo Diener, Mira Gakina, Jovanka Popova

Organised by Museum of Contemporary Art—Skopje as a part of Manifesta 14—The European Nomadic Biennial

All that We Have in Common is an exhibition that presents contemporary international artists and analyzes the possibilities for sharing different voices and common concern in the capitalist local and global context.

The exhibition will feature works from the artists Delaine Le Bas, Ahmet Kadri, Sead Kazanxhiu, Durmiš Kjazim, Robert Gabris and Luboš Kotlár, Roma Jam Session Art Kollective (Mustafa Asan, Mo Diener, Milena Petrovic), Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Nihad Nino Pusija, André Jenö Raatzsch, Emilia Rigova, Ceija Stojka, Dan Turner.

The exhibition addresses the politics of representation through works of art and practices, and at the same time opens the opportunity to ask ourselves: What is the world like when it is experienced, developed, and lived from the perspective of differences?; What and how we represent, which voices do we prefer, what do we learn about ourselves through knowing the other?; Can the concept of care through different artistic strategies redefine the boundaries between the bodies, the collective structures, the environment, and the different political struggles of the marginalized? At the same time, it considers care as an intimate connection between art and social practices and the possibility for art to discover and nurture new forms of care and recognition, at the intersection between social and political, subjectivity and solidarity within the community.

The Roma community, as an organic part of the space in which the Museum of Contemporary Art is located, is often the subject of political and social upheaval, misinterpretations, speculations, prejudices and stereotypes. The aim of the exhibition is to expand the political imagination beyond the heteronormative policies of representation and through shared knowledge by artists from and about the Roma community, to articulate different ways of self-presentation, to centralize and make visible the marginalized narratives of Roma, widely ignored and unreachable.

Through the various concerns regarding the identity policies pursued by Roma artists, the exhibition offers the opportunity to equalize and synchronize different sociopolitical voices and ways of acting in the public sphere, giving visibility to topics that are excluded from the dominant political discourse or are considered ineligible in relation to ethno-narcissism and national fetishes.

Hence, All That We Have in Common refers to works that introduce equivalence between different knowledge and association in joint action, and provides a common search for an appropriate solution by linking different types of crisis - systemic violence, exclusion, and stereotypes of Roma (as in the works of Delaine Le Bas, Roma Jam Session Art Kollective), identity issues, struggles of the marginalized and personal transformations (Durmiš Kjazim and Ahmet Kadri), untold stories and underrepresentation (André Jenö Raatzsch), women and gender issues (Małgorzata Mirga-Tas), the LGBT community issues (Robert Gabris and Luboš Kotlár), the Holocaust in relation with today’s worldwide ultranationalist political ideologies (Ceija Stojka), the war, the migrant crisis (Nihad Nino Pusija) and the housing issues (Sead Kazanxhiu), the need of different politics of care (Dan Turner and Emilia Rigova) etc.

The exhibition addresses works that show the potential of art as a community and possible viable and positive alternatives for acting on the playing field between the political and the intimate.

The project is implemented within the framework of the Project Manifesta 14 Pristina – Western Balkans and is co-funded by the European Union, and is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia.