»There Are No Politics That Are Not Body Politics« – The Urge to Come Together

»We mostly become visible when collaborating. Collaboration is the key issue in contemporary politics, economy, and culture.«

Ariana Dongus: Your work strongly embodies themes of care, collaboration, and the intricacies of social relations, with a particular emphasis on the artistic labor involved. Can you elaborate on how your own experiences and observations have influenced and shaped these themes in your art?

Neda Kovinic: I’m interested in the artistic production conditions and the relation of »work« and art, given the precarious conditions in Serbia’s visual and performing arts – conditions that are also noticeable across Europe. Everywhere, artistic work is underpaid or unpaid, and the situation seems hopeless. Artist residencies are temporary shelters for artists, but since these capacities are insufficient, they create competition between the artists themselves and their temporary nature makes them an incomplete solution for the artist’s life.

I examined these themes through collaborative dance performance and my doctoral dissertation, titled Behind Enthusiasm. In this project, I sought to understand what kind of energy sets producing an artwork in motion and keeps it moving without sufficient institutional or production support. Relating to both material and immaterial labor, the current labor market activates the ultimate resources we possess – our innate humanity, desires, emotions, passions, willingness, and aspiration to live. However, mantras like »networking,« »exchange,« »communication,« »experience,« »gaining new skills,« and »self-optimization« mostly mobilizes only unpaid/voluntary work – work »out of enthusiasm.« Enthusiasm is thus appropriated into domains of capitalist exploitation.

»Relating to both material and immaterial labor, the current labor market activates the ultimate resources we possess – our innate humanity, desires, emotions, passions, willingness, and aspiration to live.«

During my residency, I presented my work at Heidelberger Kunstverein on invitation of the curator Mehveş Ungan and choreographer Edan Gorlicki, within his project Sharing More Works. The presentation involved a form of exchange of the performances and dialogue with artists Julie Peckard and Mike Planz, dancers from the collective »Inter-Actions.« Reacting to Julie’s work, I had in my mind her position as a pregnant mother-dancer and all artists’ continuous struggle with time and proper work conditions. I found that in this context the best fit was to dance while reading the excerpt from the book One dimensional woman by Nina Power, which relates to the questions of labor.

»The rise of precarity means that labor itself has become essentially feminized: the main figure of social precariousness is a woman; Communication, flexibility, mobility and self-advancement become constituent elements of work of all persons … «¹

We mostly become visible when collaborating. Collaboration is the key issue in contemporary politics, economy, and culture.² Perhaps performance artists collaborate more due to the nature of the field, and because artistic subjectivity is now less self-centered and singular and more oriented toward research, transdisciplinarity, and performative work aspects, as discussed by Bojana Kunst in her essay »On Time Being Left to Collaborate« in the Journal for Performing Arts Theory. But with our collaborations often constrained by time, funds, and other precarious conditions, it begs the question: What constitutes true collaboration? If it’s a form of exchange, what defines a »genuine exchange,« and how do we condition our shared future?

Ariana: With Soft Power: Dionysian Socialism, you explore the legacy of nudist culture in the former Yugoslavia. What initially drew you to examine this unique cultural phenomenon?

Neda: As there are no politics that are not body politics,³ the history of the development of this unique movement and its geographical spread and transition reflects the political changes. The origins of Yugoslav naturism/nudism go back to the 1950s, as the Adriatic coast drew German naturists fleeing radical conservatism at home. Although many nudist resorts on the Adriatic Coast persist, capitalist expansion presents new challenges. My artistic research into Yugoslavia’s naturist paradise and its modern-day capitalist challenges arises from noticing closures and repurposing of some Croatian beaches I’d previously visited.

I was wondering what nudity meant in a broader sense. The thought of getting naked can cause a great sense of fear and vulnerability in us. I started to think of nudity as an act of exposing vulnerabilities, sexual identities, colonial histories, strangeness, silliness, etc. What does nudity mean in different situations? Prisoners and people who are abused or raped are forced to undress. People who are violently tortured are often stripped first. A medical patient is undressed for treatment. But naturists undress to expose themselves to the sun and merge with the environment. Lovers consensually take off their clothes to develop intimacy.

Clothing-free tourism was one of the many things that made Yugoslav communism world’s paradise in the midst of the Cold War.  The joy of the Adriatic coast and experience of freedom on islands is well described by Henri Lefebvre’s term »Dionisian socialism,« which he coined while attending the meetings of the famous Praxis School on the Croatian island of Korcula. In Germany in particular, numerous clubs and groups emerged that were either politically left-wing and in nudity propagated equality for everyone, or politically right-wing and worshiped the ideal of the wild (naked) Germans and interpreted nudism in the »public health« sense. The first official nudist beach was established on the North Sea island of Sylt in 1920. In the Nazi era, the nudist movement was forbidden until 1941. After 1945, numerous nudist clubs were founded in West Germany (with the designation FKK — FreiKörperKultur, or »free body culture«). Nude bathing was particularly widespread in the German Democratic Republic. Since 1989, the number of nudist beaches in both the eastern and western parts of Germany has declined.

»I started to think of nudity as an act of exposing vulnerabilities, sexual identities, colonial histories, strangeness, silliness, etc. What does nudity mean in different situations?«

During the pandemic, I visited friends on the Croatian coast, seeking nude beaches for their wild nature and absence of tourist amenities. Becoming a naturist myself, influenced by Western partners and friends, rekindled childhood memories of German and French nudist tourists. Upon discovering some repurposed or minimized FKK beaches, I delved into research, encountering an article in The Calvert Journal that discussed these changes. Conversations with nudists on a remaining FKK beach in Murter, near Tisno, and a supportive gay couple from Pula, deepened my understanding of the 1970s and 1980s Yugoslav atmosphere and the importance of FKK legacy, especially for homosexuals. I began envisioning dances and exercises amid the rough FKK environments, exploring soft bodies meeting stones, rugged terrain, and sea life.

Remarkably, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, controversy still surrounds nudism and its no-clothing exposure to sun and nature. Physical attacks on unsuspecting nudist tourists reflect Croatia’s shifting attitude toward such freedoms.

Ariana: You mention that your project emanates from the exploration of leisure time as a form of anti-capitalist gesture, with a particular focus on understanding the marginalized culture of FKK, including its historical and political nuances. Can you elaborate on how you perceive leisure time as a resistant or subversive act against capitalist structures?

Neda: In my works in previous years, I mostly questioned artistic labor. I came across Boris Buden’s view, which claims that if art wants to offer resistance nowadays, it must first be »reflective, autonomous, and deliberately inefficient.«⁴

I also think a lot about an artwork by Mladen Stilinovic, Praise of Laziness, wherein he asserts:

»Laziness is the absence of movement and thought, just dumb time – total amnesia. It is also indifference, staring at nothing, non-activity, impotence. It is sheer stupidity, a time of pain, futile concentration. Those virtues of laziness are important factors in art. Knowing about laziness is not enough, it must be practiced and perfected.«⁵

My friend Cyrus Peñarroyo, a spatial artist and thinker from the United States, introduced me to Jenny Odell’s book Saving Time. Odell posits doing nothing as an anti-capitalistic tool, noting:

»The aim of doing nothing isn’t to return to work reenergized, but to challenge our existing perceptions of productivity. My argument, inherently anti-capitalist and critical of technologies promoting capitalist perceptions of time and self, is also environmental and historical, suggesting that a redirected, deepened attention to place often cultivates awareness of one’s historical participation.«⁶

We need free time to immerse ourselves in nature. The current socio-economic climate is forcing us to be hyper-productive, demanding constant production and consumption. This devalues the necessity of free time, which is required for the development and nurturing of individual needs and traits.

Ariana: In your recent projects, especially Traveling Bodies, there’s a clear focus on environmental concerns, embodied experiences of eco-anxiety, and grief. How do you approach the intersection of body politics, ecology, and the palpable sense of environmental loss in your artistic practice?

Neda: When I was doing research on the relation between care, emotions, and ecology, I encountered thoughts by Timothy Morton:

»The ecological society to come, then, must be a bit haphazard, broken, lame, twisted, ironic, silly, sad. A shifting world, a world of love, of philosophy. A world of seduction … Playful care, emotions, and experience … «⁷

I liked this because it emphasizes the importance of emotional and experiential reconnection with the environment as an act of world care.

 

In July this year, I joined performers from Belgrade Nevena Radulovic and Simonida Zarkovic and Neil Luck from London at the Tarnby Park Performance Festival in Copenhagen, which focused on environmental questions and travel. That was the first time for me and my friends, collaborators from Serbia, to collaborate with Luck, whom I met during the Akademie fellowship, and I appreciate his practice regarding performance and experimentation in nature. It is similar to my approach. We delved into stories from past and present concerning environmental issues that we could bring to the festival and engaged with envisioning possible futures. We asked ourselves: What embodied experiences or gestures from our cultures, past lives, and specific personalities could we carry to Copenhagen, or to the tiny, marshy island Saltholm where I proposed to perform? Saltholm, isolated in the sea and described as a tranquility haven despite the nearby Copenhagen Kastrup airport, captivated my imagination with its role as a stop for migratory birds from around the world, bringing songs from Africa, Asia, and Europe. We, too, brought diverse content, stories, and rituals from various countries and cultures, embodying our relationships with space and earth.

On the island, we sought to learn from its nature, creating from our experiences and emotions, perceiving the elements, and exposing our bodies to them. We continually reflected on what we brought from afar and questioned if we could extract natural knowledge from this location. Our intention was to exchange – we constructed a unique body/sound ritual from elements of chosen songs during our preparation. Serbian folk songs, with their organic rhythm and animal symbolism, and British folk songs, exploring themes of sexuality, served as a foundation for our new ritual, a gift to the place.

For me, this experience aligns with Ursula K. Le Guin’s insight on renewing our world belonging:

»To use the world well, we need to learn to be in it, to renew our awareness of belonging to it. How do we do this? Knowing our kinship as animals with animals. Fellowship as things with other things. Relationships are complex and reciprocal. Nothing is single in this universe and nothing goes one way. One wants to stop seeing the trees or rivers or hills as human resources is to class them as fellow beings.«⁸

Ariana: Your collaborative work with Bolivian sound artist Carlos Gutiérrez Quiroga and curator Theo Ferreira Gomes on the Non-Aligned video installation and performance seems to celebrate spontaneity, radical openness, and a commitment to the unknown. How did this collaboration influence or shift your perspective on artistic creation and expression?

Neda: At the outset of my residency, I felt unready to publicly present my work, especially under conditions lacking production and technical support, while being handed full responsibility and obligations for the available space. With just two weeks before the showing, I was uncertain about everyone’s readiness to engage in these circumstances. The question remains – whether or not sufficient finances are available – how deeply someone can immerse themselves and contribute to the event. This brings us back to the question about human resources: inspiration, enthusiasm, passion.

Carlos and I discussed Bolivia’s and Serbia’s political situation and identified a historically significant connection between our home countries – the Non-Alignment Movement. Our exploration revolved around how it shaped us, and we found common ground in our artistic languages. Like Carlos’s sound and instruments, my dance types and films were made in the past. Our mutual interest was evident in the public choreographies of street events – protests in my case and, and festival festivals featuring Indigenous instruments on the streets of Latin American in Carlos’s case. We interlinked the dramaturgies of street performances from both Belgrade and Bolivia. Despite this artistic outcome, the experience of drilling the concrete ceiling and the willingness of Carlos to work so much physically and technically in cold space was something incredible. As was the willingness of Theo, who had to rush from another off-space, where he had also been working precariously.

The next such passionate and inspiring collaboration happened with the resident artists at the Film Academie in Ludwigsburg. After chatting at a party, Belen Pelicano, Lautaro Ruminot, and Yassine Oulhiq found kinship with my topic and planned to experiment with dancers in nature around Schloss Solitude. They recorded sound and video in the forest and in the castle’s corridors. The sound from our field research was presented during a deep listening and workshop session at the »Vital Currencies« event organized by Akademie Schloss Solitude with the Max Planck Institute. Belen edited the movie, and now we have a witty, sensitive, and poetic film, Animals that are Missing, embodying the poetry of our spontaneous and confidential collaboration.

Ariana: Your art promotes values like mutuality, empathy, care, and noncompetitive relationships, often characterized by a slow tempo and a celebration of diversity and irrationality. In practice, how do these principles guide your artistic process and interactions with other artists and communities?

Neda: I practice all these values by sharing my material, social resources, and knowledge with fellow collaborators in the process of research and presentation of an idea. I share my time, attention, and care, and my opportunities to showcase, and the modest budgets I get. I would rather share a budget with collaborating artists than to invest them in making objects or in material costs. My main gesture is to find a way to distribute the resources I received in residencies or from galleries to the other artists. I believe that it is more important that the money that circulates in the arts ends up as an artist fee and not as an investment in materialization.

During some studio visits I was asked what I would say now, after working constantly with smaller, temporary groups of artists with small budgets, and my answer was that the time spent together, which we create through discussions and debates, humor, physical play, practicing common life and fair cooperation, concern, and empathy during the process of working on the performance, is the most important. Somatic experimentation and interactive actions contribute to bonding, relaxation, and trust. Listening to each other, patience and attention are developed in the process.

Neda Kovinic holds a PhD from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade/Serbia, University of Arts, Department of Transmedia (2020) and an MFA from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, University of Arts, Department of Painting (2001). Her performances, films and installations stem from creative processes sited in temporary collaborative artists’ communities.

Ariana Dongus is a critical media scholar. She studied at Viadrina European University, University of Potsdam and University of Valencia and is currently a Research Fellow at the Chair of Digital Cultures at Technische Universität Dresden. Recent publications and research seminars include: Don’t believe the (Criti)-Hype (2023); From first Sight to Audio Message (2023); My Mother was a Computer (2021); and Invisible Subjects of AI: Ghost Work and Biometric Control in the Global South (2021). She lives and works in Berlin and Dresden.