viewpoint-east.org

Art? Who cares?

Category: art, by sophie engström, russia
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(Läsningstid: 2 minuter)

The other day the Russian State Prosecutors asked for a three-years sentence for the organizers of the controversial exhibitions “Forbidden Art – 2006” in Moscow. The organizers, Yury Samodurov, the former Director of the Sakharov Museum in Moscow, and Andrey Erofeev, a former curator at the State Tretyakov Gallery, are charged under the Art. 282. The Art. 282 defendants can be facing a sentences to prison for five years! Samodurov and Erofeev claims it is a “fifty-fifty change” that they are convicted and take an example from 2005, when Samodurov and a museum worker Lyudmila Vasilovskaya were found guilty of inciting religious hatred and sentenced to a fine of 100 thousand rubles for another exhibition, “Caution, Religion!”.

On the accusations bench you find the Orthodox nationalists “People’s Cathedral”. They have sued the exhibition and the organizers for “offending religious feelings”. The exhibited pieces at “Forbidden Art – 2006” were such that was not athorized to be shown for the public. Among those works was a work by American artist Vagrich Bakhchanyan that shows a Soviet-era medal of Vladimir Lenin on a cross that should to give the impression that has been crucified.


From the exhibition “Forbidden Art 2006”

So I ask: Art? Who cares about art these days? Well, not many enough, some of you perhaps say. Far too many, the Russian State prosecutors seems to think and feel that they need to be protect us (or themselves?) from it’s force and power! Or is it just that the prosecutors believe that is possible to whatever they like with curators and artists? Since there are very few that protesters anyway?

It is actually high time we show them they are wrong!! We must act on an international level! We cannot let authorities (Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian, German, Italian etc etc) decide what kind of art that should be allowed to be shown. Show your support for the organizers and for the survival of freedom of expression!

Write on your blog about it!

Or join the Facebook-group shows the support for the organizers.

••••

Open letter from The European Cultural Parliament
Rights in Russia
At Russian News Line
At Radio Free Europe


“FEMEN? Again?!”

Category: by sophie engström, gender, ukraine
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(Läsningstid: 4 minuter)

A couple of months ago I asked a friend of mine, Ukrainian researcher and gender specialist, if she could say something about FEMEN. She answered, with a deep sigh that could be heard even though it was on a chat “FEMEN? Again?! I just sent you some information about them! All foreigners only wants to know about FEMEN”. I answered her with a laugh: “But this is the first time I am asking you about FEMEN.” Even though she found that hard to believe, she decided not to argue about it.

The incident is mostly interesting because it illustrates how exposed FEMEN are in media and how their reputation have got far beyond the borders of Ukraine. It also implying that all other feminist movement in Ukraine are now even farer from the limelight. I don’t want to belong to those that gives FEMEN too much space, but I think it is important to analyze them seriously. Especially since it is had to decide what to think about FEMEN. I must admit I still don’t know of I find their actions repulsive and contra-productive (etc. etc.) or provocative in a good sense. I have however found it hard to find good analytic essays on FEMEN’s work, but Maria Dmitrieva’s eminent article in частный корреспондент shed a lot of light over how you can interpret FEMEN. (If you don’t know any Russian you can use Google Translate.)

The article is a solid work, but there are two issues that Dmitrieva looks into that I would like to highlight a bit more closely. One important point is however FEMEN denotes that they are a feminist movement or not. Interestingly enough, you can get two answers on that question, since FEMEN seems to have decided (?) to have one approach toward the international audience and an other for the domestic audience. In Ukraine they claim to be without any feminist ambitions, but on their international site they claim that they really are working for feminist issues. I find it very intrigues that this seems to come as such a surprise to Dmitrieva. Feminism has (as Dmitrieva surely knows) very different connotations in the West and former communists countries. And what does Dmitrieva means with a “feministic movement”? For me this is not completely clear. For instance, can we actually (as Dmitrieva seems to imply) call women that went out on the streets to demand bread in Russian Empire in the 1917 as an “feminist movement”? I would rather call it “women acting in a certain cause” or that it is a movement with a majority of women. From my point of view it is not an easy task to compare Ukrainian (which is not the same as Russian!) and Western situation without regarding their rather (or even, very) different political situation which has promoted feminist actions very differently.

I would however like to question something different in FEMENs action. FEMEN often shows their support for other issues than feminist issues. This is OK, of course, but I am not sure that I agree with that showing your naked bestas when protesting against the “blue buckets” outside the Russian embassy, actually contribute with anything significant… expect showing your breast.


From FEMEN at Flickr

The other important and interesting issue that Dmitrieva highlights is if FEMEN’s use of stereotypes are favorable for the feminist cause or not. Dmitrieva claims that this game of theirs, the play with patriarchy and gender stereotypes, will never work and will finally destroy FEMEN. FEMEN will be eaten alive if they continue to use gender stereotypes and play with patriarchy. I must say that in some sense I do agree with Dmitrieva. I also agree with Dmitrieva that it is unclear how and if FEMEN deconstruct gender stereotypes. But on the other hand, if they show how deconstruct the stereotypes, would it been so fruitful for their actions? Does we always be completely clear and transparent to be able to say we deconstruct? And what is “deconstructing” in these sense? To flash it like “Here we are deconstructing gender stereotypes”? Couldn’t the use of stereotypes be a way of deconstructing? I think that the performative act, by using stereotypes, can promote deconstruction and does not imply that we do not deconstruct att all. However, I agree with that it is complicated (and possibly dangerous) to play with values and norms like gender stereotypes. But I do not agree with her point is that FEMENs “play” will automatically imply that FEMEN will loose their cause.

By mentioning this I would say that Dmitrieva’s essay about FEMEN is actually the best and most important analyze on FEMEN so far. I do wish that somebody would translate it so it could be published for an international audience as well. And above mentioned remarks is not actual critic, but rather me getting inspired by an important and thought-provoking essay.


Cops on Fire: The True Story

Category: by sasha pas, guests, music, russia, theatre
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(Läsningstid: 4 minuter)

The Cops on Fire-story started more than a year ago. One evening I met my friend Sasha Kholenko (DZA) in the 16tonns cafe in Moscow, the club where DZA together with how2make-crew made concerts and gigs during the time. He told me about one of his projects, a radio play based on a detective story about cops and killers. The play included more than 30 hip-hop tracks, each track was a short episode in the play. DZA made all the beats and loops for that project called “Cops On Fire”. He asked if I want to meet the other guys in the project, and make this on stage and not only on radio.

So, why did he ask me? At that moment I was working with the theatre group  “Le Cirque de Sharles La Tannes”. In 2005 we staged The Crystal World, a short story by Victor Pelevin. The interesting thing was that all the music for The Crystal World was composed by another member of how2make-crew, the talanted electronic musician Roma Litvinov (Mujuice). It felt like a good chance to make another experiment with how2make-crew on stage. But now with hip-hop.

So we started to work…

We had however no budget. So by the time we had the idea of how it could be on stage, we started search for sponsor. We thought we needed more or less 8000$ for the whole production. (Finally it costed more than 10000$). But we failed to find any sponsor. Probably we didn’t try hard enough. Everyone was eager to start the production and rehearsals as soon as possible, and to search for sponsors are a rather boring work. So we, me and my partner, Jury Kvyatkovsky (the director of “Cops On Fire”) invested our own money. But many helped. One of our friends proposed us a studio for the rehearsals, another found some costumes, another made the decorations on credit. And in September last year we had a call from S:t Petersburg and they invited us to the Sergey Kuryokhin Festival. We agreed and had only two months to finish everything.

The premiere in St.Petersburg was very sucessful. Even though we didn’t like the technical result – the place was a cinema but we prefer a theatre. The audience loved it though. Directly after that we started to work with the Moscow premiere and tried to make it in the best possible way. After several months of working it seemed as everyone finally started to believe in what they were doing. The premiere in Moscow got only one negative comment and that was that we used to much slang and bad language in the play, and we have now cut some of those.

However, the most interesting thing with our project is that we, subconsciously, have made a very social and actual project. In Russia there were several scandals connected to the police last year. There where for instance a shooting at a supermarket by a Major Evsukov and a video message for Medvedev. Our story is opposed to real life with the most fair cop. He is a true social order keeper. He spares no effort to put his vision of what’s right and what’s wrong into practice. Still there are very few comments from theatre audience about this connection.

“Cops on Fire” gives two shows every month in Moscow at the theatre centre “Na Strastnom”. In June it will be the 10th show in Moscow. Each time the house is full. About 3000 people have seen the show so far. In May “Cops On Fire” gave a live show on “TransMusicales” festival, and in September we will take part in international theatre festival GOGOLFEST in Kiev, Ukraine. And we have also started a film project….

…to be continued…

Cops on fire at facebook

Sasha Pas is art-director of Le Cirque de Sharles La Tannes – an independent creative group of actors, directors, musicians and artisits, based in Moscow, Russia. In past recent years – editor and founder of 55 pdf magazine. Now works as a creative producer of Cops On Fire project.


viewpoint-east.org recommends: Five-Finger Discount by DZA

Category: by sophie engström, music, recommendations, russia
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(Läsningstid: < 1 minut)

I highly recommend the latest release by Sasha DZA at Error Broadcast. (For a regular reader of viewpoint-east.org DZA surely do not need an introduction, but you can refresh your at myspace or read my interview with Dza in May, when he just returned from RBMA in London, or an interview (in Swedish) with Dza and Mujuice from 2008.)

The release at Error Broadcast

Sasha DZA, the how2make frontier, has with Five-Finger Discount created an unique album which unpredictable beats that will accompany a wild, wild summer. At least I will let this beautiful creative madness ring in my ears all summer long… and probably much longer than that! I highly recommend you all to purchase the lossless audio, which you find below the free download. Keep creativity like this live!

Dza – Shifty by DZA


Feminism in Russia? Like a sleeping beauty?

Category: by sophie engström, gender, russia
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(Läsningstid: 5 minuter)

During my stay in Moscow last month, I one night ended up looking at Russian TV at a friends places. My friend and her old mother was zapping through the channels and ending up at the news. While we was sitting there consuming the information (or whatever the TV viewer are expected to do) I started to feel physically sick. Since I never look at TV in Sweden I am probably rather sensitive towards what I see. At first I thought it was because I had too much tasty food to eat, but rather quick I understood it was the news in the box infront of me that was the course of my sickness. And why did I feel like that? Well, it was not the actual news. They look the same as they always have in Russia, so this did not upset me (enough, I should add).

No, it was an other unpleasant aftertaste I could feel. During the 30 minutes or 45 minutes news show there where not even one woman speaking. I could see women crying or walking in the background of some guy being interviewed, but not even one woman had a voice. Coming from a country where the newsrooms and editorial work have, may be not great, but at least an awareness how important representation and diversity actually are, I felt like I was pushed back to some kind of Medieval landscape just in one blow. It is true that women’s representation in Russia in, for instance, the Parliament, sucks but this was just too much! (Check the statistics at Wikigender.) And I might alos add that this is a rather unpleasant change since all my previous stays in Moscow and Russia. I felt an urge to talk to a feminist that could put some light on how it became like this.

I was lucky. The day after I had a meeting with one of the most prominent feminists in Moscow, Nadezhda Azhgikhina, journalist, literary critic, and executive secretary at Russian Union of Journalists. I asked her why women have vanished from Russian TV and why I can’t hear or read any protests. Nadezhda implies that most bosses or executive bosses are men, so basically the newsrooms or editorial are stuck with those. But when it comes to why TV news shows almost no women Nadezhda has a very interesting theory. She denotes that Russian TV should be regarded a theatre play. This play has as a purpose in trying to fool the viewer into believing that the government actually is in charge and can handle all occurring problems in the society.


Nadezhda Azhgikhina

– Men doesn’t show fear and are therefor regarded as the most effective power. So by excluding all women, they try create the picture that Russia is the strongest and best country in the world.

The second part of her theory is that she implies that TV, including all other media, do not want to promote the idea that there exists any gender problems in Russia of today. One explanation could be that it just don’t sell. The younger generations have not interest in feminism or gender issues, basically because they do not want to be influenced by “old” values. By “old” she denotes feminist values from 1990’s and during the Post Soviet Era. The feminist movement back then was very strong, but has drastically declined and today there are almost no feminist movement, she implies.

However, during the 90’s the feminist movement managed to create a good and stable network among those that are working with the questions.

But even so, I urge, while looking at Russia today I can only see stagnated stereotypes and mostly values promoting, for example, macho-masculinities and sticky sexisms when it comes to feminities. From my perspective Russia gender situation appears to be more conservative and obsolete than ever. I point at Ukraine and FEMEN and ask Nadezdha why we can’t see any reactions like that in Russia. Her answer actually surprises me. She claims that Ukraine is 10 years behind Russia., and that Ukraine’s radical feminist movement will also languish away. Her rather fatalistic attitude scares me, however she can be right. In Sweden we have had several strong feministic movements that have subsided. While Russia had a strong feminist during the 90’s, Sweden and many other countries, for instance USA, had a rather heavy backlash on feminists issues. From some perspective I would say that Sweden has never really recovered from that backlash.


FEMEN dressed as policemen protesting against the limitation of democratic liberties and freedom of the press during the first hundred days of Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency commemorated today.

The question we should ask ourself is perhaps how feminism can survive between every intervals of activity. What will for instance happen with an organization such as FEMEN when Ukrainian media has lost their interest in them? What plans do they have to survive the situation? After my meeting with Nadezdha I strongly feel that this is perhaps one of the weakest points of all feminist movements around the world. (And all other activism, I suppose.) When media turns their heads in other directions, too many feminists activists vanishes from the scene. How come? Not all feminists are exhibitionists for sure!!

But hopefully social media could play an important and different role for making campaigns to survive longer. FEMEN has been able to create their own media flow, with twitter, flickr etc etc. And I do hope that they have the strength to go on, even after the Ukrainian establishment has recovered from the chock that FEMEN (still) creates.


From FEMEN’s last campaign “Bloody tits”


“Den ryska bokmarknaden är i en enda röra”

Category: by sophie engström, literature, russia, Uncategorized
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(Läsningstid: 3 minuter)

När jag besökte “Museernas Natt” i Moskva, träffade jag mångsysslaren Nick Ohkotin, initiativtagare till den oberoende bokdistributören Berrounz, ägare av Proekt OGI bookstore och Interbok i Stockholm. Vi pratade en del om situationen för den ryska bokindustrin och om hans arbete med Moscow International Open Book Festival.

– Tanken med “Moscow International Open Book Festival” är att visa besökarna att böcker inte bara har reducerats till kommers. Vi vill istället sätta fokus på litteraturen och författarnas tankar om kreativitet och skapande. Vår avsikten är alltså inte att sälja böcker i mängder, det sker på vanliga bokmässor, utan att fokusera på literaturen och författarna, säger Nick.


Nick Okhotin på Proekt_Fabrika under Museernas natt i Moskva 15 maj 2010.

Ungefär 80% av det som försiggår på “Moscow International Open Book Festival” handlar om litteratur, men för att överleva och locka till sig besökare har man bjudit in andra aktörer. Förra året bjöd de till exempel in den amerikanska anarkisten och filosofen John Zerzan. Det var en verkligt populär programpunkt. Andra populära inslag på festivalen, som inte hade en direkt koppling till litteratur, var en diskussionsduell mellan olika kulturföreträdare. De hade till exempel en duell mellan en filmkritiker och en filmskapare.

Nicks ambition med festivalen är att försöka göra festivalen något mer eklektisk än den varit tidigare, så att bidrag som beskrivits ovan blir mer vanliga. Han ser det som en viktig vitamininjektion för att inspirera det kulturella debattklimatet och likaså bokmarknaden, som han för övrigt anser den vara i stort behov av nya impulser.

Men att vara yrkesverksam på den ryska bokmarknaden är allt annat än riskfritt. För ungefär två år sedan mördades till exempel en förläggare för ett förlag som ger ut skolböcker och det är just där som korruptionen är som störst, menar Nick. Han försätter med att påpeka att hela bokmarknaden är en enda röra. Det verkar som om det finns en avsaknad av mål och visioner, säger han och menar att det finns många exempel på dåliga projekt i bokbranschen.

– “Piramida” är ett sådant exempel. Det var en bokaffärskedja här i Moskva som fanns på många platser. Butikerna låg ofta på exklusiva adresser. Deras hyror måste varit skyhöga. Proekt OGI Bookstore var en av många som engagerade sig och satsade i Piramida. Men problemet var att det inte fanns någon egentlig tanke eller idé bakom affärsidén, så de gick helt enkelt givetvis omkull. Vi förlorade runt 10.000 € vilket är ett enormt belopp för vår verksamhet. Det var nära att vi inte skulle klara det.

Nick hoppas därför på framtiden, men han ser inte särdeles ljust på den.

– Boken som form har svårt att konkurrera mot nya informationsvägar och läsplattan kan ju antingen vara en välsignelse eller det sista dråpslaget mot bokmarknaden. Förutsättningen är ju att folk fortsätter att läsa, men ibland är jag orolig att attityden till litteratur håller på att förändras, menar Nick. Och med den ryska litteraturens stolta tradition i åtanke kan jag inte låta bli att förfäras när en besökare på Fabika instämmer och berättar att det knappt finns något som helst intresse för inhemsk (eller internationell) litteratur bland yngre.

– De spelar dataspel eller surfar och verkar inte ha något intresse alls för att läsa, och Nick är enig med besökare.

Problemet med svikande intresse för litteratur är visserligen ett hyfsat globalt problem. Men för ett land som Ryssland, som ofta hänvisar till sin litterära dignitärer, får det kanske vidare konsekvenser. För hur går det med den ryska själen om den inte har någon kontakt med Dostojevskij eller Pusjkin?