ARTMargins Online

Contemporary art across the evolving global peripheries

Category: ARTMargins Online: Interviews

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Sven Spieker, Zumrad Mirzalieva ·

Interview with Zumrad Mirzalieva

In this podcast recorded in March 2026, Sven Spieker speaks with artist Zumrad Mirsalieva about her practice and her work with Davra research collective. The collective was started in 2021 by artist Saodat Ismailova as an independent platform for artistic research, public programming, publishing, and commissioning focused on Central Asia. The group aims to respond to a lack of sustained artist-led structures in the region capable of supporting indigenous knowledge production, critical exchange, and long-term collaborations. Since then, Davra has developed a body of work across publishing, moving image exhibition, screenings, and educational formats. For example, the collective organized a … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Dastan Kozhakhmetov, Sven Spieker ·

Contemporary Art in Central Asia: Sven Spieker in Conversation with Dastan Kozhakhmetov

Sven Spieker: A key theme in Western discussions of contemporary art in Kazakhstan and Central Asia in general is the Soviet legacy. Some of the most recognizable Central Asian artists today were born under Soviet rule. What’s your view of  the complex legacies of the Soviet experience–including its presumed colonial aspects–and on the way these surface, or do not surface, in contemporary art from the region?

Dastan Kozhakhmetov: It’s impossible not to notice the colonial tools, strategies, tactics, and the overall colonial attitude of Soviet power in Central Asia. As a result, the Soviet past became part of … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Ileana Pintilie, Dan Perjovschi ·

Drawing in Freedom: Ileana Pintilie interviews Dan Perjovschi

This interview was prompted by Dan Perjovschi’s first retrospective, which took place, fittingly, in Timișoara, Romania, September 3–October 26, 2025. Fittingly, because it was this city and the Zona, Eastern Europe festival (1993–2002) that defined an important chapter of his story. With a keen interest in the regional context and the historical and artistic qualities that bound us together across Central and Eastern Europe, I launched this performance art festival in 1993 in Timișoara, the city that marked the beginning of our liberation from dictatorship. I chose performance art because there was an urgency to express and because … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Maja Fowkes, Aïda Adilbek, Aziza Kadyri, Aigerim Kapar, Anel Rakhimzhanova, Saodat Ismailova ·

Visualizing the Transformation of Nature in Central Asia: Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts (SAVA) Roundtable

This roundtable brought together Aïda Adilbek, Aziza Kadyri, Aigerim Kapar, Anel Rakhimzhanova and SAVA Creative Fellow Saodat Ismailova to discuss the environmental transformation of Central Asia during the Soviet period and its contemporary ramifications through the lens of artistic, curatorial and academic research. Held at UCL on May 29, 2025, the conversation was led by Maja Fowkes, and attended by SAVA Team members Reuben Fowkes, Makar Tereshin, and Sorcha Thomson.

Maja Fowkes: I’m a Croatian-British art historian, I was born in Socialist Yugoslavia and my grandma used to make me a tea I loved, which she called Russian tea. When

… Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Rita Süveges, Maja and Reuben Fowkes ·

Weather Spectres of the Socialist Anthropocene: An Interview with Rita Süveges by Maja and Reuben Fowkes

Rita Süveges is a Hungarian artist whose research-based practice explores the ecological impacts of industrial systems, ranging from monocultural agriculture to fossil fuels and extractivism. Growing up on the Great Hungarian Plain surrounded by vast crop fields, Süveges witnessed the environmental legacy of socialist agricultural policies. Her interdisciplinary approach combines visual art with in-depth research into technoscientific imaginaries, examining how capitalism responds to environmental crisis through increasingly technological solutions. In her latest project, Weather Spectre, she looked at the history and mythology of weather manipulation.

Maja & Reuben Fowkes: Your solo exhibition Weather Spectre at the Hungarian National Gallery … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Luchezar Boyadjiev, Susan Snodgrass ·

Interview with Luchezar Boyadjiev: Imaginary Monuments and the Public Sphere

Throughout his prolific career, artist Luchezar Boyadjiev has addressed the power dynamics of systems of belief, whether political, religious, or artistic. Long inspired by the public works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Boyadjiev explores the social conditions of public space and the urban environment through speculative projects – in the form of photographs, digital collages, temporary installations, performances, and public dialogues – that question traditional symbols of power and serve as counter-monuments to canonical history. On the occasion of the many anniversaries happening this year celebrating some of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s most iconic projects (The Gates, New York City; … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Allan Siegel, Szabolcs KissPál ·

Snapshot Dialogue: Allan Siegel (Budapest) and Szabolcs KissPál (Budapest)

As part of its 25th Anniversary Celebrations, ARTMargins Online hosts a series of short dialogues between critics and curators from Eastern Europe and one or several artists. With these “snapshot” conversations, we want to shed light on the challenging political and economic conditions under which artists and other producers of culture in the region operate today, yet we also aim to highlight the amazing vibrancy, resilience, and resourcefulness of its art scenes.

This Snapshot Conversation, a podcast, focuses on the status of the Intermedia Program at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts and the artistic practice of Szabolcs KissPál. KissPál … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Sasha Razor, Lesia Pcholka, Uladzimir Hramovich ·

Snapshot Dialogue: Sasha Razor (L.A.), Lesia Pcholka (Berlin), and Uladzimir Hramovich (Berlin)

As part of its 25th Anniversary Celebrations, ARTMargins Online hosts a series of short dialogues between critics and curators from Eastern Europe and one or several artists. With these “snapshot” conversations, we want to shed light on the challenging political and economic conditions under which artists and other producers of culture in the region operate today, yet we also aim to highlight the amazing vibrancy, resilience, and resourcefulness of its art scenes.

This conversation between Researcher of art migration from Belarus, Sasha Razor (Los Angeles) and Berlin-based Belarusian artists Lesia Pcholka and Uladzimir Hramovich focuses on the artists’ engagement with … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Lesia Khomenko, Svitlana Biedarieva ·

Snapshot Dialogue: Svitlana Biedarieva (Mexico City) and Lesia Khomenko (Kyiv)

As part of its 25th Anniversary Celebration, ARTMargins Online hosts a series of short dialogues between critics and curators from Eastern Europe and one or several artists. With these “snapshot” conversations, we want to shed light on the challenging political and economic conditions under which artists and other producers of culture in the region operate today, yet we also aim to highlight the amazing vibrancy, resilience, and resourcefulness of its art scenes.

In this conversation, Ukrainian critic and art historian Svitlana Biedarieva and artist Lesia Khomenko address the development of Ukrainian art after the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of

… Read more
Elena Chemerska in collaboration with Ivana Mirchevska, thresholds of no-body in particular, 2020, installation, sculpture, two channel video, video essay 8’30, sound.

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Jon Blackwood, Elena Chemerska, Ivana Mirchevska ·

Snapshot Dialogue: Jon Blackwood (Aberdeen/Sarajevo/Skopje), Elena Chemerska (Skopje/Berlin), and Ivana Mirchevska (Skopje)

As part of its 25th Anniversary Celebrations, ARTMargins Online hosts a series of short dialogues between critics and curators from Eastern Europe and one or several artists. With these “snapshot” conversations, we want to shed light on the challenging political and economic conditions under which artists and other producers of culture in the region operate today, yet we also aim to highlight the amazing vibrancy, resilience, and resourcefulness of its art scenes.

This conversation between art historian and curator Jon Blackwood, and artists Elena Chemerska and Ivana Mirchevska, focuses firstly on the conditions for making contemporary art in contemporary North … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Boris Kostadinov, Kamen Stoyanov, ARTMargins Online Editorial Collective ·

Snapshot Dialogue: Boris Kostadinov (Berlin) and Kamen Stoyanov (Vienna/Sofia)

As part of its 25th Anniversary Celebrations, ARTMargins Online hosts a series of short dialogues between critics and curators from Eastern Europe and one or several artists. With these “snapshot” conversations, we want to shed light on the challenging political and economic conditions under which artists and other producers of culture in the region operate today, yet we also aim to highlight the amazing vibrancy, resilience, and resourcefulness of its art scenes. We begin the series with a conversation between Berlin-based curator Boris Kostadinov and Kamen Stoyanov (Vienna and Sofia). The conversation was recorded in Vienna on September 13, 2024.… Read more

ARTMargins Online: Forum / ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Karolina Majewska-Güde ·

25th Anniversary Reflections: Roundtable “Central and East European Art and Culture, 1945-Present” (ed. Susan Snodgrass), 2001

ARTMargins Online is celebrating 25 years! To mark the occasion, the editors invited past ARTMargins Online authors and other writers from the region to select one article from AMO’s online archive of more than 1000 texts, providing a brief introduction that highlights the chosen item’s continued relevance. ARTMargins Online published its first article on January 15, 1999. Today, the publication is one of the largest online archival resources for contemporary art from East-Central Europe and beyond. Our reflection project celebrates AMO’s 25 years, but it also aims to highlight our unwavering commitment to promoting research, criticism, and artistic projects that … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Monika Fabijanska, Susan Snodgrass ·

Interview with Monika Fabijanska on Women at War

Women at War gathers the works of twelve Ukrainian artists who employ a variety of media to address the Russian war against Ukraine, from its beginning in 2014 to the full-scale invasion in February 2022, through the lens of gendered experience. The exhibition explores the struggle for Ukrainian independence and women’s equality against the backdrop of the war and its impact on both the national and individual psyche while giving voice to women as narrators of history and agents of change. Curated by Monika Fabijanska, Women at War premiered at Fridman Gallery, New York, in the summer of 2022, and … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Sasha Razor, Vladimir Paperny ·

“This is What the Current Government in Russia Would Like to Ban”: Interview with Vladimir Paperny

Cinema, Culture, and the Spirit of the Times (NLO: Moscow, 2023), a new publication by the late film historian Maya Turovskaya and Los Angeles-based culturologist Vladimir Paperny, presents a thoughtful comparative analysis of the Soviet and Hollywood film industries. We are publishing an exclusive translation from one of the book’s key chapters below. Maya Iosifovna Turovskaya (1924–2019), a legendary figure in the world of film and theater criticism who passed away in 2019 at the age of 95, left behind an extraordinary legacy. Her work on the iconic Soviet documentary Triumph Over Violence (dir. Mikhail Room, 1965) offered groundbreaking comparisons … Read more

Exhibition view

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / Conference

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 by Julia Tatiana Bailey, Kathleen Reinhardt, Christopher Williams-Wynn ·

Revolutionary Romances: Into the Cold – Alternative Artistic Trajectories into (Post-) Communist Europe

On October 13, 2022, the Albertinum at the Dresden State Art Collections hosted an international conference entitled “Revolutionary Romances: Into the Cold – Alternative Artistic Trajectories into (Post-)Communist Europe.” The conference sought to question the simplistic East-to-West “defection” narrative of the post-war art worlds, and to explore the multiple alternative directions of travel by artists during the Cold War. Participants discussed why artists working in and beyond the West decided to enter the communist space, and considered the unexpected results of these subversive movements.

Following the conference, Christopher Williams-Wynn, a PhD candidate at Harvard University and one of the conference … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Raino Isto, Zsuzsa László, Gregory Sholette, Olga Kopenkina, Suzana Milevska, Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić, Dmitry Vilensky ·

Roundtable on Art and Solidarity

The following roundtable was convened online on November 18, 2022, in conjunction with ARTMargins Online’s current special issue on Art and Solidarity. AMO’s editorial collective invited a panel of East European artists, theorists, and curators (Suzana Milevska, Olga Kopenkina, Dmitry Vilensky, Rena Raedle and Vladan Jeremic) who all have consistently engaged with the dilemmas of defining and practicing artistic solidarity. We asked participants to examine the forms and interpretations of solidarity they find the most effective, why expressions of international solidarity often fail, and what lessons the legacy of socialist internationalism may have for us today.

The online conversation moderated … Read more

Blue and red distorted forms with black text that reads attention air raid sirens in Berlin

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Sasha Razor, Tatiana Kochubinska, Natasha Chychasova, Antonina Stebur, Maxim Tyminko, Anna Chistoserdova, Valentina Kiselyova, Lena Prents ·

“I Refuse to Accept This State of Affairs”: An Interview with the International Coalition of Cultural Workers Against the War in Ukraine

While Russia aggressively wages a major war in Ukraine, how can contemporary art help launch an antiwar movement worldwide? At a time when art workers in the post-Soviet region are more ethnically divided than ever, the International Coalition of Cultural Workers Against the War in Ukraine demonstrates a unique ability to unite around a platform for promoting antiwar and anti-colonial messages. Initially intended as an alternative Belarusian pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale, this digital platform quickly evolved to include and showcase antiwar artwork from a broad spectrum of countries including Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Germany, … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Janeil Engelstad, Kateryna Filyuk, Lilia Kudelia, Ilya Zabolotnyi  ·

Vich-na-Vich: A Conversation – Ukraine, Extreme Care Time

This podcast dialogue took place on July 17, 2022, nearly five months since Russia first invaded Ukraine. Cultural producer Janeil Engelstad and curator Lilia Kudelia spoke with curator and researcher Kateryna Filyuk and art historian and cultural programmer Ilya Zabolotnyi about how the war has impacted Ukrainian art and culture, issues of cultural preservation and self-agency, as well as the building of support networks and new art infrastructures. Filyuk is a curator at Izolyatsia Platform for Cultural Initiatives in Kyiv, whose mission has shifted to address the war-related needs of arts organizations, artists, and cultural workers. Zabolotnyi is Director of … Read more

In the foreground, a palm tree made of roughly cut wood lies on snowy ground while n the background there are large text and photo panels installed on old buildings. One group of three panels shows a woman with a toy, with a caption in three languages

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Jasmina Tumbas, Corina L. Apostol, Kristaps Ancāns ·

Entangled Roots in the Mutating Nature of the New East: Kristaps Ancāns in Conversation with Corina Apostol and Jasmina Tumbas

Romanian-American-Baltic curator Corina L. Apostol and Latvian-British artist Kristaps Ancāns have recently begun a series of collaborations that focus on expanding discourses in contemporary art to include transnational perspectives centered on the New East. In December 2021, Apostol served as the curator for Ancāns’s large-scale site-specific installation what can’t we just create (2021-2022) at the Mark Rothko Art Centre in Daugavpils, Latvia. Prompted by the current invasion of Ukraine, Apostol and Ancāns revisit this installation in conversation with art historian Jasmina Tumbas, to discuss how they—as cultural workers from the region—negotiate the reconfiguration of questions of identity, nationalism, and sexuality … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Sven Spieker, Boris Kostadinov ·

Conversation with Boris Kostadinov

Sven Spieker: Please outline your view of the curator in the 21st century. What are this curator’s major commitments and constraints? Also does the “curator-from-Eastern Europe” concept retain any specificity for you, or not?

Boris Kostadinov: The war that’s raging in Ukraine right now is showing us beyond any doubt that we live in a fluid world, a world in which definitions—not only of what is meant by art, historical time, as well as culture, political and economic geography—are bound to be thoroughly rethought and redefined. The 21st century is no longer what it was until yesterday—basking in … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Hedvig Turai, Ilona Németh ·

A Memorial That Neither Victims nor Perpetrators Want but Is Needed: An Interview with Ilona Németh

In March 2022, the General Assembly of Budapest announced the winning team of the juried competition for the public memorial, Memory of Rape in Wartimes: Women as Victims of Sexual Violence, a unique memorial project that aims to address the difficult history of violence against women during wartime. The winning proposal, Memory of Rape in  Wartimes, by Slovakian-Hungarian artist Ilona Németh, architect Gabi Mészáros, and poet Anikó N. Tóth, is to be realized in 2023. Hedvig Turai recently spoke with Ilona Németh about their project.

Hedvig Turai: To set up a memorial to wartime victims of rape is … Read more

The artist, a black woman with very short hair, sitting at a table against a dark background. She has a box open in front of her and appears to be reading something inside the box.

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Michael Laundry, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński ·

“To Me, Everything is a Space for Encounter”: Michael Laundry in Conversation with Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński

Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński is an interdisciplinary artist mainly using archival and museal material for artistic research in photography and video. Late last year, Kazeem-Kamiński received the Camera Austria Award for Contemporary Photography by the City of Graz. A solo show of her work was also recently on view at Kunsthalle Wien. While in Vienna, Michael Laundry spoke with Kazeem-Kamiński about how her work creates space to think about Black feminism, representation, and post-colonial theory. In this interview, Laundry and Kazeem-Kamiński discuss the her use of slide shows, artist books, photography, and video in the dissection of the white gaze on Black … Read more

A black and white photo showing the curators and artist of the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennial

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Denisa Tomková, Maria Lanko ·

The Story of the Ukrainian Pavilion in Venice and Exhibition-Making as a Matter of Cultural Survival: An Interview with Maria Lanko

With the upcoming 59th International Art Exhibition in Venice on April 23, Maria Lanko, Lizaveta German, and Borys Filonenko—the curators of artist Pavlo Makov’s project Fountain of Exhaustion. Acqua Alta for the Ukrainian Pavilion—have found themselves in a difficult situation that has made it impossible for them to continue working on the exhibition. On March 8, 2022, the organizers of the pavilion announced that “despite the ongoing war, the team managed to evacuate the fragments of [Makov’s] artwork from Kyiv” and will be able to present it at the upcoming Venice Biennale.(“Ukrainian pavilion will make it to La Biennale … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Uroš Čvoro, Mladen Miljanović  ·

Realtime Monument: Interview with Mladen Miljanović

Banja Luka-based artist Mladen Miljanović has had a long-standing interest in monuments and practices of remembering, from his The Garden of Delights (2013), an installation that emulates tombstone engravings created for the Bosnia and Herzegovina national pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, to his Draft for a 20 Minute Monument (2019), in which nine disabled men and war veterans sit for 20 minutes on a discarded pile of stones. This conversation, part of our Special Issue on Contemporary Approaches to Monuments in Central and Eastern Europe, was occasioned by his upcoming exhibition Realtime Monument at Budapest acb Gallery (March … Read more

A view of a Lenin monument against a bleak field with bare trees to either side. The statue shows Lenin walking forward, his coat blown open by the wind.

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Miška Mandić, Kuba Dorabialski ·

Invocation Trilogy – A Conversation on Monumentality, Language, and the Past with Miška Mandić and Kuba Dorabialski

Kuba Dorabialski’s film series Invocation Trilogy stitches together an unlikely constellation of encounters and mythologies centered around the Eastern European Socialist project. Narrated in a fictional Slavic language invented by Dorabialski, the trilogy plays with truth, fabrication, and legibility as it unpacks histories and memories of Eastern Europe from the insider/outsider migrant perspective. In this interview, artist and filmmaker Miška Mandić speaks with Dorabialski about this work and his practice.

Miška Mandić: The Invocation Trilogy is a series of three video works made between 2017 and 2021, each with a bigger scope than the last. Rather than a sense … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Susan Snodgrass, Edit András ·

A Counter-Monument to Female Victims of Wartime Rape: An Interview with Edit András

A new memorial project in Budapest, Memory of Rape in Wartimes: Women as Victims of Sexual Violence, will commemorate female victims of wartime rape, while establishing a culture of dialogue around rape and violence in Hungarian society and the region. Initiated by the General Assembly of Budapest in January 2020 and to be completed in 2023, the project goes against the grain of the practices of the current Hungarian government’s illiberal system of erecting nationalist monuments and statues without public input, through an open, democratic process that includes artists, historians, scholars, an international jury, and representatives from public institutions. … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Zsuzsa László, Anna Zilahi ·

One on One: Interview with Anna Zilahi, Missa Echologica (2021)

 

This podcast is part of the One on One series, which presents timely encounters between ARTMargins Online editors and contemporary artists, focused on one work.  It was recorded on the occasion of the recent online release of Missa Echologica, a video piece. Zsuzsa László interviews the Hungarian artist and poet Anna Zilahi who created this work in collaboration with Laura Szári and the Varsányi Szirének feminist choir (Blanka Bolonyai, Dóra Ferenczy, Bettina Horváth, Dóra Király, Rita Szántó, Laura Szári, Diána Takács, Eszter Tóth, Virág Török, Anna Zilahi). Gergely Ofner was in charge of photography. The work was introduced … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Raino Isto, Latent Community ·

Otranto – A Time-Based Monument to Albania’s 1997 Migration: A Conversation with Latent Community

This interview focuses on the film Otranto (2019–2020), created by the artist collective Latent Community (Ionian Bisai and Sotiris Tsiganos). Otranto explores a relatively unknown tragedy: the story of the refugee ship Katër i Radës. The ship departed from the Albanian port city of Vlora, carrying 120 people fleeing the violence that had engulfed the country following the massive collapse of pyramid schemes in 1997. On March 28, 1997, the Italian navy warship Sibilla—acting in accordance with an Italian blockade of Albania to prevent refugees from entering the country—intercepted, rammed, and sunk the Katër i Radës in the strait of … Read more

ARTMargins Online: Interviews / ARTMargins Online: Special Issue

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 by Susan Snodgrass, Aida Šehović ·

ŠTO TE NEMA – A Living Monument: An Interview with Aida Šehović

ŠTO TE NEMA (Where have you been?) by Bosnian-born artist Aida Šehović is an annual nomadic monument to the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide that has traveled internationally to 15 different cities from 2006 to 2020. This participatory public monument, consisting of more than 8,372 fildžani (small porcelain coffee cups) that have been collected and donated by Bosnian families from all over the world, addresses issues of trauma, healing, and remembrance. The first in a series of articles that make up our Special Issue Contemporary Approaches to Monuments in Central and Eastern Europe, this interview is occasioned by Šehović’s

… Read more
a drawing showing a pyramidal arrangement of funnels, each draining out of two spouts into progressively wider rows of funnels below

ARTMargins Online: Interviews

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 by Olya Balashova, Yuliia Hnat ·

On the Concept of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ukraine: Svitlana Biedarieva in Conversation with Olya Balashova and Yuliia Hnat

For many years, Ukraine has experienced a growing need for a Museum of Contemporary Art that would function as the first state-run collection focused on acquiring and exhibiting the work of contemporary Ukrainian artists. The attempts to create such an institution began in the early 2000s, but thus far have been unsuccessful due to political and sociocultural factors. In 2020, a nonprofit association was created to work in an applied way on the development of theconcept of the museum, with the involvement of key experts in contemporary art and culture. In this interview, art historian and artist Svitlana Biedarieva speaks … Read more