We’re Not Like Them
4.10.–11.11.2019.
The MMSU is pleased to announce the opening of the fourth and final exhibition of RISK CHANGE, international art & research project that explores migrations through contemporary art.
The exhibition named We’re Not Like Them and the related programs will be taking place at the MMSU premises, from 4 October to 10 November 2019, as a part of the Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture programme.
Following the topics of the previous exhibitions, forced migrations and escape, We Are Not Like Them is occupied with the notion of foreign people and foreign places. It deals with prejudices we use to construct the picture about others, but it also addresses the question of how others see us. In addition, it investigates old and new stereotypes about foreign places, focusing on an unusual terminology of ‘the Other’ – of a neighbor, a stranger, a newcomer.
Together with documentary materials, the exhibition gathers the works of invited artists and works selected through an open call. The works have been created from the 1950s onwards, and they vary from intimate confessions to allegorical and critical accounts. In general, the exhibition combines the elements of a cultural study of stereotypes, a travelogue, a documentary fiction about the figure of a stranger in modern Europe and an artistic satire on the social landscape, with myths of superiority, colonial history, lust and obsession with purity as its main elements.
Finally, instead of highlighting individual positions, We’re Not Like Them stresses the issue of the Other as the political issue which is based on privileges of the elite over the (outsider) minority, depending on who is in the position to talk.
The artists selected through an open call:
Danilo Milovanović – The Snail Project; video
Driton Hajredini – The Sin; video
Driton Selmani – Two Jokes Make One Truth; installation
Fotini Gouseti – Renkonto; installation
Gildo Bavčević – 021_123; three-channel video installation
Ivana Keser – Genealogy; jumbo poster in public space
Lana Čmajčanin – Balkangreuel – Balkan Cruelty; installation
Mirna Kutleša – Blue Blood; drawing, installation
Zvukospjevi (Nicole Hewitt, Vida Guzmić, Ivan Slipčević) – Sleepwalkers; a performance lecture for the opening of the exhibition
Nika Autor – Newsreel 62 – Family and Worker; installation
Olga Dimitrijević – I (Don’t) Believe in Heroes; audio-visual installation
Simon Farid – Institutions Are Just Groups of Workers, Arranged; site-specific (text) work
Vangjush Vellahu – Fragments I 2015-2018 (Where Stories Cut Across the Land); multichannel video installation
The jury: Katerina Jovanović, Ksenija Orelj, Sabina Salamon, Marina Tkalčić, Vana Gović
Invited artists:
Brook Andrew – Back of Man II; Memory (Tryptique); The Shepherd; light object, picture, light object
Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša – I love Germany; installation
Chris Marker & Alain Resnais – Statues Also Die; film
Chris Marker – Zoo Piece, film
Nina Delanović & Mirna Gurdon (studio mikser) – POST CARD; illustrations on postcards
From the British Library (Geographical maps):
Pierre Desceliers: Planisphere
Johnson, Riddle & Co.: Hark! Hark! the Dogs do Bark!
From the MMSU collections:
Avgust Černigoj: Figure; graphic
Avgust Černigoj: Exotica; graphic
By having a focus on the topic of migrations, this exhibition is an integral part of the Kitchen of Diversity program within the Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture program.
Foto: Driton Selmani, the segment of the work ‘Two Jokes Make One Truth’
Curators: Ksenija Orelj and Marina Tkalčić
'We're Not Like Them': the opening and the exhibition setup; Photo: Damir Žižić
