Madina Tlostanova / Jannis Panagiotidis / Lesia Kulchynska

Euromodernism transformed a previously marginal region into a centre of the emerging world system and at the same time set in motion a mechanism of promised belonging - to Europe, to modernity and to humanity - that is still in force. But is it true, this belonging of Eastern Europe? Madina Tlostanova works with the theory of de-coloniality and the study of race and gender to conceptualise the relationship between European imperialism and what she calls subaltern empires (e.g. the USSR). In her keynote, she presents the relationship between Eastern and Western Europe, its colonial hierarchies and their implications, both in post-Soviet states and for the post-Soviet diaspora. Afterwards, she will discuss migration, racism, identity and decolonial art in the East-West European context with Jannis Panagiotidis and Lesia Kulchynska.Madina Tlostanova is a decolonial thinker and novelist and professor of postcolonial feminisms at Linköping University (Sweden). She focuses on decolonial thought, especially in its aesthetic, existential and epistemic manifestations, feminisms of the global South, the post-socialist human condition, fiction and art. Her recent books include »What Does it Mean to be Post-Soviet? Decolonial Art from the Ruins of the Soviet Empire« and »A new Political Imagination, Making the Case«.Jannis Panagiotidis is a scientific director at the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on Eastern European studies, Jewish studies, migration and post-socialist transformation. In his book »Postsoviet Migration in Germany«, he developed new conclusions regarding identity and social and cultural phenomena as a result of the post-Soviet migration movements.

Lesia Kulchynska is Kyiv-based curator, art critic, culture studies and visual culture researcher. At the moment, she works at the Research platform at Pinchuk Art Center, and at the Department of screen and performance art studies, and culture studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. She also teaches Culture Studies and course »Violence of the Image« at Kyiv Academy of Media Arts. Previously she worked as a curator at Visual Culture Research Centre and Set Independent Art Space. Apart of this, she is the founder of https://www.srvc.website/.

Moderated by author Juri Wasenmüller.

Part of the event series OTHER EUROPE.