Enabling Entanglements to Emerge

From October 5 to 10, 2020, Performance Curators Initiative (PCI),1 a network of artists, curators, performance-makers, cultural workers, educators, practitioners, and enthusiasts based in the Philippines, held their third conference online via Zoom and streamed it on YouTube. Entitled “Conversations on Curation and Performance in the Time of Halting and Transformation,” I participated in this conference that opened a digital space for curators and performers around the world to talk about the effects of the global pandemic on the live arts. Connections, conversations, creative research, collaborations—as PCI founder and conference organizer Roselle Pineda notes—are the main focus of the network, which seeks to look at the relationship between “[p]erformance and curation, the role of curation in performance and role of performativity in curatorial practice” (from the network’s website). Pineda had invited me to register for the conference, which was focused on the role of curator as one who activates enabling spaces.

ALTERNATIF MODEL PENILAIAN NILAI PENTING PADA BANGUNAN DIDUGA CAGAR BUDAYA DI KOTA DONGGALA, SULAWESI TENGAH [THE ALTERNATIVE MODEL OF SIGNIFICANT VALUES ASSESSMENT ON SUSPECTED BUILDINGS OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN DONGGALA CITY, CENTRAL SULAWESI]

Bangunan tua di Kota Donggala adalah bangunan bersejarah yang berasal dari periode kolonial. Akan tetapi, bangunan-bangunan ini hingga sekarang belum ditetapkan sebagai cagar budaya karena terbatasnya tenaga ahli cagar budaya di instansi kebudayaan Kota Donggala. Selain itu, metode asesmen penilaian bangunan diduga cagar budaya yang ada umumnya rumit dan tidak komperehensif. Tulisan ini bertujuan memberikan alternatif metode penilaian nilai penting yang sederhana untuk bangunan-bangunan yang diduga cagar budaya, dan dapat dipraktikkan pekerja bidang kebudayaan di instansi pemerintah lokal. Terdapat enam nilai penting yang diamati pada bangunan yaitu nilai sejarah, arsitektural, estetika, sosial, ilmu pengetahuan dan pendidikan. Metode penilaian menggunakan pemberian skor pada masing-masing nilai kriteria yang ditentukan. Pemeringkatan bangunan diklasifikasikan menjadi tiga peringkat yaitu utama, madya, dan minor. Bangunan yang diobservasi ialah Kantor Pusat Koperasi Kopra Daerah (PKKD) Donggala dan Gudang PKKD Donggala, dua peninggalan dari masa kolonial yang berhubungan dengan perdagangan kopra. Dari penilaian yang dilakukan diperoleh hasil yakni Kantor PKKD Donggala memiliki total skor 21 dan berperingkat madya. Gudang PKKD Donggala memiliki total skor 29 dan berperingkat utama. Dengan adanya alternatif model penilaian nilai penting yang lebih sederhana, maka diharapkan pemerintah lokal, dalam hal ini Dinas Kebudayaan yang berwenang, dapat lebih mudah melakukan asesmen awal terhadap bangunan-bangunan yang diduga sebagai cagar budaya meskipun tanpa bantuan tenaga ahli. Some old buildings in Donggala City are historical heritages from colonial period. Thus far, these buildings have not been designated as cultural heritage due to the limited number of experts in the field. In addition, assessment methods for indicated cultural heritage buildings are generally complex and not comprehensive. This research aims to provide an alternative assessment method that can be practiced by cultural workers. There are six important values observed in buildings i.e. history, architecture, aesthetic, social, scientific, and educational. This method used a score for each of those specified criteria values. Building ratings were classified into primary, intermediate, and minor. Based from the assessment, the Donggala PKKD office has a total score of 21, middle ranked. While PKKD Donggala Warehouse has a total score of 29, top ranked. This alternative model as a simpler assessment of significant values can be easily carry out by local government without the help of experts.

New life of the Old Believers of Transbaikalia: towards the “Soviet person” (late 1920s)

In the 1920s, throughout the USSR, there were well-known processes of unification of a heterogeneous social structure, ultimately designed to create a unified Soviet society. The attitude of the Old Believers of Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and Chita District of the Far Eastern Territory to what was happening during this period became one of the most problematic in terms of the introduction of Communist principles. This was recognised by almost all local Party officials and cultural workers. Formally reproducing the structures of Soviet political and economic institutions, adopting technical innovations and the specifics of the "cultural revolution" in their lives – in reality, the Semeiskie Old Believers often did not seek to change their views on the world, religious identity for the sake of forming the Soviet type of personality. The purpose of the work is to analyse the relationship between the authorities and the Old Believers, as well as the everyday perception of the Communist ideology by the latter. Hence, the main problem can be considered the identification of the reaction of the Semeiskie (including the Communists) to the intensified in their community anti-religious propaganda by the late 1920s – the main condition for changing the paradigm of the worldview. Another problem is to research the ideological (educational) aspect of the new way of life and people's attitudes towards it. As a brief conclusion it should be noted that the process of the formation of the Soviet type of personality in the Old Believers’ environment of Transbaikalia by the early 1930s had a formal character of development: the ideologisation of the population with atheistic propaganda were not tied in the minds of people as an indispensable prerequisite for their new cultural life.

Promiscuous Care in Movement-Based Research: Lessons Learned from Collaborations in Manhattan's Chinatown

Decolonial and feminist studies scholars have long recognised the intricate ways in which the personal and academic are deeply interwoven and that the co-production of knowledge is essential for social transformation. This article examines the cultural organising of the Chinatown Art Brigade, an intergenerational collective of artists, activists, writers, educators and practitioners driven by the fundamental belief that cultural, material, and aesthetic modes of production have the power to combat gentrification. Specifically, I situate the collective within a longer lineage of Asian American cultural organising in Manhattan Chinatown and draw from years of movement-based research as a member of the collective. Incorporating personal reflection and interviews conducted with brigade members, this article speaks to how the themes of power, temporality and affectivity show up in movement-based research. How can we think more capaciously about academic and non-academic collaboration, to push the boundaries and explore new possibilities that honour the time, expertise and trauma of directly impacted communities? In reflecting on my work with the Chinatown Art Brigade, I discuss the nuances of intergenerational co-production of knowledge and interrogate how a feminist ethics of promiscuous care can uncover new possibilities for collaboration between cultural workers, organisers and movement-based scholars within and beyond the neoliberal academy.

Increasing university students' organizational skills during practical application of event management technologies in organizing events

Socio-cultural events are currently gaining increasing relevance and the problem of their organization is becoming urgent both for commercial companies and professionals in this sphere. Today, event management is becoming the leading technology for the organization of events and, notwithstanding the importance of the mastery of theoretical knowledge, only the practical implementation of event management technologies in event organization serves as a prerequisite for the development of organizational skills in professionals in the socio-cultural sphere. The conducted experimental work reveals a major discrepancy in the level of university students’ mastery of organizational skills in the process of theoretical and practical training and proves the effectiveness of the latter in the development of professional mastery of socio-cultural workers. The reasons underlying the development of socio-cultural workers’ organizational skills specifically in the course of practical mastery of event management technologies are identified and comprise contingency on multiple factors, the variability of the socio-cultural situation, and high competition in the market of socio-cultural services.

Social Pedagogy as an offer of master’s studies in Poland after the Second World War (1945-1950)

The article presents graduate programs (Masters level) in the field of social pedagogy offered by Helena Radlińska and her colleagues at the University of Łódz after WWII. Socio-Pedagogical studies established at the Department of Social Pedagogy at the University of Łódz were supposed to prepare educational, social, and cultural workers in time of revival of Poland after 1945. The example of the educational model created at that time can serve as an inspiration in the development of contemporary programs of education rooted in the Polish socio-pedagogical tradition.

Queer Production Studies

Queer production studies is a subfield of production studies that specifically considers the significance of queer identity for media producers, particularly as it relates to the creation of LGBTQ content. Its emergence as a named subfield did not occur until 2018, but there have been studies of queer production prior to that. While general production studies scholarship has focused on industrial production, the scope of queer production studies includes not just production spanning commercial, public, and independent domains, but also fan production. Queer production studies often make use of interview and ethnographic methods to investigate how nonnormative gender and sexual expression factor in the work of media producers, and also examines relevant industry documents, media texts, and media paratexts to discuss how LGBTQ media content reinforces or challenges existing norms. It considers how queer media production relates to the degree of integration or marginalization of LGBTQ people and representation within media as well as society more broadly. Currently, almost all research explicitly identified as queer production studies is conducted in U.S.-based or European-based contexts, and there is thus a large gap in scholarship of queer media production occurring elsewhere. Research on queer production in the commercial domain has addressed how LGBTQ workers have shaped the content and marketing of queer media, and the relationship of commercial LGBTQ media to independent queer media and to LGBTQ activism. In commercial print, television, and digital media in the United States, there has been some integration of LGBTQ workers beginning in the 1990s, with mixed results for content diversity and for the injection of resources into independent production, as well as a complex relationship to advancing LGBTQ causes. In national contexts with prominent state-supported media, such as the United Kingdom and various European countries, the presence of LGBTQ workers at public service broadcasters interacts with mandates for diversity and inclusion. This has had mixed outcomes in terms of both work environments and the kinds of media texts produced. In independent queer production, issues of limited resources and viewership are persistent, but the professional trajectories of queer cultural workers show that they may move back and forth between major commercial and low-budget production. Digital media has been transformative for many independent producers, facilitating the creation of more diverse content, although web series still face issues of securing resources and dealing with competition from commercial media. Queer fan production has often occurred in response to deficiencies of representation in canonical (official) media texts, taking the form of narrative works such as music videos as well as paratextual commentary. While queer fan texts typically challenge the heteronormativity of mainstream media, many do not depart significantly from other norms around gender and sex. Some fan-written queer-themed fiction has been adapted into commercial television series in countries such as China, although state censorship has precluded the series from being explicitly queer.

Mythology as a Driver of Creative Economy in Waterfront Regeneration: The Case of Savamala in Belgrade, Serbia

This article explores the impact of mythology on urban planning within the creative economy framework. In an urban environment, mythology provides new potentials and introduces the possibilities of built heritage as well as its prose and narrative forms, historical contexts, and social relations. Activists, artists, and other cultural workers promote the culture of freedom of expression in this authentic space. Their bottom-up approach allowed Savamala to become one the most interesting quarters of Belgrade. Meanwhile, the Belgrade Waterfront project is nearing completion and the question whether it will preserve the cultural heritage of Savamala arises. This article investigates the role of mythology in Savamala’s riverfront regeneration, the use of narrative myths and mythical spatial potentials, and the role of mythology in urban planning today.