01 May 2015

'There is a Crack in the Museum of History. Is That How the Future Gets in?'

'There is a Crack in the Museum of History. Is That How the Future Gets in?'
FORMER WEST Public Editorial Meeting and tranzit. hu conference

Time: May 13–14, 2015
Venue: FUGA Budapest Center of Architecture, Marcell Breuer Hall. Address: 1052 Budapest, Petofi Sandor u. 5.

The public editorial meeting and conference in Budapest explores the changing notions of history and memory, advancing the thesis that today debates around museums, monuments, memorials, re-enactments, revisionist historiography, and rivalry between such traumas as Trianon and the Holocaust, constitute a major political battleground in Hungary as well as internationally, aiming to control the imagination of the past instead of the future. In addition to theoretical statements on current local and international urgencies of memory politics, contributors discuss what role artistic practices and the institutions of art play in shaping memories.

Contributors: Edit Andras (art historian, curator, Budapest), Inke Arns (curator, author, Berlin/Dortmund), Boris Buden (writer, cultural critic, translator, Berlin), Tony Chakar (writer, architect, artist, Beirut), Jodi Dean (writer, researcher, Geneva/New York), Ferenc Grof (artist, Paris), Daniel Lazare (writer political theorist, New York), Jozsef Melyi (critic and art historian, Budapest), Rastko Mocnik (sociologist, literary theorist, translator, and activist, Ljubljana); Vjeran Pavlakovic (historian, Rijeka), Andrew Ryder (writer and journalist, Budapest), Jonas Staal (artist, Rotterdam), G.M. Tamas (political philosopher and writer, Budapest), Andrea Tompa (theatre critic, writer, Budapest), Zsuzsanna Toronyi (museologist, Budapest), Jelena Vesic (independent curator, writer, Belgrade), Anna Wessely (art historian and sociologist, Budapest)

Artistic intervention in the lecture hall: Ferenc Grof
In the framework of the event screening of films by Neil Beloufa, Szabolcs KissPal, Dezso Magyar, Hajnal Nemeth, Milo Rau, tranzit. hu/Tehnica Schweiz

The Budapest public editorial meeting and conference is realized as a collaboration between FORMER WEST editors Boris Buden, Maria Hlavajova, and Simon Sheikh and project manager Wietske Maas, and tranzit. hu curators Dora Hegyi, Zsuzsa Laszlo and project manager Zsoka Leposa.

The conference will be in English.

Registration: office@tranzitinfo.hu


Further information:
www.formerwest.org/PublicEditorialMeetings/ThereIsACrackInTheMuseumOfHistoryIsThatHowTheFutureGetsIn

The program of the conference can be downloaded here:
hu.tranzit.org/en/event/0/2015-05-13/there-is-a-crack-in-the-museum-of-history-is-that-how-the-future-gets-in

'There is a Crack in the Museum of History. Is That How the Future Gets in?' is part of the culminating phase of the project FORMER WEST, which unfolds over the course of 2014–16 through a series of public editorial meetings leading to the realization of the FORMER WEST publication. The series is supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. FORMER WEST is organized and coordinated by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht. The activities of BAK are made possible by financial support from the City Council of Utrecht and the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands.

ERSTE Foundation is main partner of tranzit