Online talk and panel discussion »Everyday Forms of Resistance«

How can humanity be preserved in times of social, political or ecological unrest?

At the opening of the first exhibition in the Horizons series, in which fellows of the Eastern European Network present their current works, Akademie Schloss Solitude warmly invites you to a talk followed by a panel discussion on everyday forms of political resistance.

The two guests, Ika Sienkiewicz-Nowacka and Karolina Grzywnowicz from Warsaw/Poland, will be discussing survival strategies, the power of the powerless, and care and hospitality as forms of resistance.

The exhibition Everyday Forms of Resistance (Warsaw/Poland, 2021), curated by Ika Sienkiewicz-Nowacka, thematizes caring, tender and mindful ways of approaching conflicts, environmental disasters and xenophobia. Palestine serves as a metaphor for a place which faces numerous challenges posed by our contemporary world.

Following the presentation of Karolina Grzywnowicz’s project Bedtime (2021), everyday forms of resistance in Palestine and beyond will be discussed. What sources of strength can empower non-violent forms of resistance? How can we stay calm instead of merely re-acting? How can active forms of resistance be sustained? How can resistance be practiced in a polarized world?

Ika Sienkiewicz-Nowacka, former fellow at Akademie Solitude (2002), directs the residency program at the Center for Contemporary Art, located at Ujazdówski Castle in Warsaw. In 2018, she initiated the project Everyday Forms of Resistance, dedicated to everyday acts and expressions of resistance in Palestine and beyond. In cooperation with the city of Ramallah/Palestine, AIR Antwerp/Belgium and the Helsinki International Artist Program (HIAP, Helsinki/Finland), artists from Poland, Palestine, Finland and Belgium were offered residencies and were invited to participate in public discussions and a joint exhibition.

In this context, the interdisciplinary artist Karolina Grzywnowicz, also a former fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2018) as well as at Ujazdówski Castle (2019/2020), spent two months in Ramallah/Palestine in 2019.

Her current project Bedtime (2021) explores lullabies as forms of resistance in everyday life in the occupied Palestinian territories: In the streets of the Palestinian camps, open violence and arbitrary, unjustified arrests, not only of adults but also of children, are a daily occurrence. At night, soldiers conduct house searches and disturb the peace. Sleep deprivation, a method of torture used by oppressors worldwide, is used here against entire neighborhoods. Against this backdrop of coercion, Karolina Grzywnowicz has recorded lullabies that refugees sing despite the power tactics of cultural uprooting and sleep deprivation. As quiet and gentle as they are, these songs are also subversive and resistant acts which may elicit punishment.

For more information on the Everyday Forms of Resistance project, click here.