Missing autobiography, poetics of the body, pronominal politics

It is not easy to find the “right way” to subvert the practices of excluding the “feminist point of view” from philosophy, literature and art. In order to open this narrow door, the festival event this year include autobiography as an integral part of critical theory and new martial arts.

Participants: Laura Hengehold, Polona Mesec, Metka Zupančič, Elena Pečarič, Valerija Vendramin, Eva D. Bahovec

Admission free.

Right on Time? On Resilience and Timeliness, round table discussion

Theatre is said to be a here and now experience, which defies today’s logic of quick changes and virtual presence. It takes time. Irena Štaudohar wrote some years ago that one of the important characteristics of the Mladi Levi festival was that all curatorial choices were right – on time. Or ahead of time, maybe? Is this the recipe for survival of an arts organization, of an NGO, to be on time or to beat time?

We would like to explore the idea of being on time and of being ahead of time or being behind time in terms of curatorial choices and also in terms of the decisions we make in order for our arts organizations, for our work and for us to survive. Does resilience in the world of art depend on the capability of predicting and anticipating changes (are the things that we took for granted – like artistic freedom – disintegrating)? Is there a gap between Eastern and Western understanding of contemporaneity? And how to fight for time at the time when time is a commodity? We would also like to find inspiration for resilience at the time when changes are so quick that the problems sometimes already become passé before we are able to address them.

The roundtable will begin with cases from the speakers on their strategies and tactics of survival and time and continue into a debate. We will start behind time and finish on time.

Moderator: Tjaša Pureber
Speakers: Rarita Zbranca, Sodja Lotker Zupanc, Tomasz Kirenczuk, Siniša Labrović, Nevenka Koprivšek
In collaboration with: Relais Culture Europe, AltArt

The discussion is in English.

More information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

FUTURE OF FESTIVALS – Festivals and cultural tourism

On the 20th anniversary of the Mladi levi festival, our state of mind is marked by – remembering the Gramsci’s maxim – pessimism of the intellect and the optimism of the will. The circumstances are increasingly pressing and difficult for the festivals like ours, and on the other hand, we find them increasingly necessary. Therefore we feel that we have to diagnose well all the pressures on the festival, to anticipate all the problems and at the same time to believe in the power of festivals, in the power of socializing events, where art is used to create transformative moments or states.

Of course, the purpose of anniversaries is to look back, but more importantly, to try and chart the future course of the festivals. What are the challenges that await them, how are we supposed to profile them at the time when almost anything can be called a festival, how to resist the pressures of commercialization, confining to local environment, how to resist curating dictated by financial, geopolitical and logistical circumstances. In the near future, we see two key driving forces in the development of the festivals: connecting with tourism – where we believe in nano‑ and microtourism, that is sustainable tourism rather than in mass tourism – and preserving the position of internationality, of exchange, rather than growing nationalism and populism.
In the coming months, we will organize a series of discussions, lectures and presentations on the future of festivals, and this year’s Mladi levi festival will host a roundtable discussion on the topic of festivals and cultural tourism. We will talk about how to establish a link between tourism and festivals in the next two years, when culture will be at the core of Slovenia’s national tourist strategy, in a way that would benefit culture and tourism, and above all, visitors to art events and tourists.

Speakers:
Janez Leban, president of the Festival Sajeta, Union of Associationa of yound and creative Tolmin
Deborah Pearson, performing artist, co-founder of the festival Forest Fringe
Anže Zorman, journalist and editor at Culture.si and Kulturnik
Tjaša Pureber, coordinator of Asociacija
Tanja Hladnik, Initiative of film festivals of nongovernmental organisations

Moderators:
Nevenka Koprivšek, Alma R. Selimović

In collaboration with: Društvo Asociacija

Information: www.ljudmila.org/~bunker, info@bunker.si

BIO•FICTION@Ljubljana

Photo:BioFaction KG

A selection of awarded international short films on how synthetic biology, bio-art and society may come to intertwine.

Synthetic biology is a new and promising approach in the biotechnology field, which produces and re-transcribes DNA structures in order to push the functioning of microbial and animal cells closer to human needs and desires. (more…)

City as a CANVASS, as a STAGE and as a BATTLEFILED

Photo: Sunčan Stone

Discussion with accompanying programme

The theme of the conversation will revolve around a city as a canvass (graphic interventions in space, graffiti, space-invaders, installations, light interventions etc), as a stage/gallery (street theatre, musicians and other performers, flash mobs etc) and as a battlefield (the so called artivism: subvertising in culture jamming, protests through art etc). (more…)