Popivoda’s work at the intersection of performance and film often explores the structure of the cultural and political spheres in both the former Yugoslavia and the broader contemporary world. Yugoslavia, How Ideology Moved Our Collective Body deals with the question of how ideology reveals itself in public space through mass performances.
The author collected and analyzed film and video footage from the Yugoslavia years (1945–2000), focusing on state performances (youth work actions, May Day parades, celebrations of the Youth Day, etc.) and counter-demonstrations (student and civic demonstrations in 1968 and the 1990s, the 5 October Overthrow of 2000, etc.). Going back through the images, the film traces how Communist ideology was gradually exhausted through the changing relations between the people, ideology, and the state.
The film will be preceded by a 30 minute talk by Jamie Rann, suitable for those with no prior knowledge of the subject.
‘Future Perfect, Past Perfect: Memory and the Russian Avant-Garde’
The Russian avant-garde of the early twentieth century is known as an unprecedented explosion of originality and idealism in art, music, and literature. But it was also a different way of thinking about time, of imagining the relationship between past, present and future. Groups like the Russian Futurists nurtured ambitious hopes of breaking free from the burden of the past and building a utopian future. That was a century ago. What happens to the dream of the future once it is a part of the past? How do we remember the future? This talk look at the life and legacy of Futurist poets like Velimir Khlebnikov and Vladimir Mayakovsky as a way of exploring the paradoxes of ambition and nostalgia that shaped the twentieth century and still resonate today.
Jamie Rann is Teaching Fellow in Russian at the University of Birmingham. He is the editor and a translator of Subkultura,by Artemy Troitsky, about histories of resistance in Russia, and is currently writing a book about Russian Futurist literature.
We will also be joined by Marta Popivoda in conversation with Anya Harrison, co-curator of The Return of Memory and founding member of The New Social.
The New Social is an independent London-based collective founded by Olya Sova and Anya Harrison that stages public programmes – including film screenings, talks and special projects – as a way of rethinking the ‘New East’.