The third issue of the ITI Journal deals with theatre in the shadow of war and crises. The focus is on the realisation of the permanence of war and crises and the question of the sustainability of institutional and cultural-political strategies. But above all, the articles deal with the conditions and practices of artists in exile and how cooperation can work. What role does theatre play in this context at all?
Gemma Pörzgen looks at the challenges faced by theatre professionals in the wake of the Russian war of aggression. Sophie Disselhorst talks to Anastasiia Kosodii, Maja Zade and Nina de la Chevallerie about the cooperation between theatres, independent groups and exiled artists. Oleksandr Seredin describes his experiences at the outbreak of the Russian attack in Kharkiv and how his view of himself and the institution of theatre has changed. Russian critic Alla Shenderova reports on the changed working and living conditions of Russian journalists and artists. Ozi Ozar looks at the revolution in Iran and the expectations of a life in exile and, last but not least, expresses wishes to the German cultural scene. In his essay, Dr. Pieter Verstraete gives an overview of previous exile research in connection to Turkish and Kurdish migration movements. And Karim Asir, also known as the Afghan Charlie Chaplin, tells of his flight and arrival in Germany. Last but not least, the third issue also refers to other perspectives on the topic, such as the contributions of the Finnish ITI, which has other approaches and encounters with Ukrainian and Russian artists.
Some works from Monika Huber's ARCHIVE ONE THIRTY accompany the articles in this journal issue and complement the textual level. One minute and thirty seconds is the average length allotted to a contribution in a news block. Since 2011, the beginning of the so-called "Arab Spring", the artist Monika Huber has been creating a picture archive with images from the daily television news broadcasts that bear witness to protest, upheaval, war, violence and their consequences. She saves the images digitally, prints them out and reworks them with the means of painting and drawing. Over the years, an archive has been created that reveals a "grammar" of news images and invites us to a critical examination of crisis reporting in television news.
Based on the conference "Burning Issues" 2022, which was organised for the first time in cooperation with the ITI, in Journal #2 we take a look at the global dimensions of (gender) equity and artistic work in international as well as transnational contexts. Which obstacles need to be overcome, which mechanisms affect artistic work and how can alliances for more equity be enabled? Nora Amin describes her experiences as a curator in the context of decolonisation processes, Bárbara Santos reflects on feminist aesthetics as a starting point for artistic and activist work and Monika Gintersdorfer and Carlos Martínez talk about the challenges and allure of transcontinental artistic work.
To kick things off, we look at the role of theatre festivals with a view to their narratives, their diversity and strategies of curating and look forward to contributions from Dr.in Lisa Gaupp and Dr.in Nicola Scherer, who shed light on the challenges from an academic perspective. Chiaki Soma and Kyoko Iwaki, Programme Director and Programme Collaborator, of Theater der Welt 2023 talk about their five curatorial strategies for the festival in Frankfurt am Main/Offenbach and the two dramaturges and festival curators Kerstin Ortmeier and Martine Dennewald reflect on post-colonial curating. In addition, Yvonne Büdenhölzer and Thomas Engel, President and Director of the ITI - German Centre, talk about the impact of the pandemic on transnational exchange and the challenges for the ITI's network. Christine Henniger, project manager of the Media Library for Dance and Theatre, reflects in her six imperative action areas on the future of the artistic archive and how diversity and representation must also find their place there.
Dr. Lisa Gaupp explores how diversity and otherness could be curated without labeling, paternalizing, or exoticizing while at the same time taking into account the severe impact that neocolonial structures and practices of social inequality and exclusion have on the ambition to decolonize curatorial practices.
Dr. Nicola Scherer gave the keynote speech, of which experpts are published here, at the Kick Off Weekend of the ITI Academy on 3 December 2021, where transnational and globally active artists, scholars, and experts from culture and politics analysed and discussed the future of international festivals and transnational collaborations.
International cooperations and coproductions with artists from Africa pose special questions and create challenges – in terms of economy, but also in terms of communication and trans-parency. For Kerstin Ortmeier and Martine Dennewald they are motives to think about post-colonial curating.
