The crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus sprouts forms of otherness that we cannot immediately see, reflect, recognize, or articulate. In midst of the panic about the future of cultural production, the fight for the preservation of funding, the torrent of online exhibitions, video theater and instantly adapted digital cultural content, The Hub (Čvorište) doesn’t settle for migrating its previously planned program online. Instead we wish to invite anyone that might be interested to stay in their bed and join the Shapeshifters From Uranus reading group.
The Shapeshifters From Uranus propose a dive into science fiction focusing on authors that already at the beining of the last century have been looking into the relations of the human and non-human as well as destabilizing the premise that located in the center of the universe with his techno-extensions is a white heterosexual man (and not a Ekumen lesbian, a mutt or the common rock) .
Through this reading group it is our desire not only to expand what is conceived as ‘the future’ , but to question the values on which this imaginary is based.
Encouraging a dialogue in which the only rules are that everything we think of is (not) true and that all interlocutors are (non) experts, The Shapehsifters urge us to temporarily replace concluding with observing.
The Shapeshifters From Uranus reading group is set to stay active from April to November 2020 with two titles proposed on a monthly basis. If interested please apply to info@g-mk.hr (headline ‘Shapeshifters’). The first meeting of the group is scheduled for 28.4. The meeting chanell will be arranged and announced beforehand.
→ April reads:
The Dispossessed – Ursula K Le Guin
We Who Are About To – Joana Russ
→ We will disseminate e-copies by email. The choice of reading a single title or both is yours.
— Marko Gutić Mižimakov, facilitator of The Hub
http://cvor.site
The Hub (Čvorište) is a publication imagined as a virtual exhibition space acompanied by a year long program enclosing exhibitions, performances, artist talks, screenings etc. Framed as a sub program of GMK, its focus is on procesual, hybrid, ephemeral and experimental art practices.
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The Hub (Čvorište) is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Zagreb, queerANarchive and the World.
GMK is supported by Zaklada Kultura Nova and the Foundation for Arts Initiatives.
