Smashing Wor(l)ds
Cultural Practices for re/Imagining & un/Learning Vocabularies
Smashing Wor(l)ds: Cultural Practices for re/Imagining & un/Learning Vocabularies aims to engage with vocabularies, languages, and narratives of resistance in order to build new forms of expressions against the growing levels of epistemic violence ingrained in our vocabularies.
The project is conceived as a collaborative and multidisciplinary platform bringing together institutions, artists, grassroots organizations, and researchers for a multivalent dialogue between diverse life practices, narratives, and voices to oppose cultural and social marginalization. We will address forms of communication and practices of European cultural institutions through processes of questioning vocabularies, hegemonic narratives, and centric knowledge. The project will establish a map of shared experiences, a charter, and podcasts for future vocabularies inspired by counter-cultural activities opposing xenophobia, heteronormativity, and racism.
This project is the result of a partnership between Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (Poland), Inna Przestrzeń [Other Space] Foundation (Poland), Centre for Fine Arts Brussels (BOZAR) with the Africa Museum (Belgium), Kulturen in Bewegung (Austria). It is funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
Kultur in Bewegung will lead the project Smashing Wor(l)dsCultural Practices for re/Imagining & un/Learning Vocabularies and conceptualise performative labs together with its partners: Afro Rainbow Austria [ARA], Queer Base, Silent University Graz, and Students of the Post-Conceptual Art Practices Studios at the Academy of Fine Arts [PCAP]. These labs engage in de-colonising vocabularies of knowledge and ways of disrupting and reimagining artistic forms to express these vocabularies in a more accessible way. All the aforementioned groups will collectively co-curate the Festival of Life Vocabularies.
BOZAR and Africa Museum will propose communication workshops for editing and mediation staff, focused on vocabularies relating to gender, decolonization, well-being and English language, artistic interventions, an international conference on the history of the ‘world music’ term, and relevant artistic interventions in exhibitions.
Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art and Other Space Foundation will create a laboratory for non-violent vocabularies of art aiming to support incumbent emancipatory experiences within and beyond art institutions. Training for staff, research on vocabularies spoken and not-spoken there, residencies, artistic creations, and discursive events will take place in Warsaw and online.
