Eviction of Culture
After nearly 24 years of being based at Metelkova 6, Maska Institute received a letter from the Ministry of Culture asking it to provide signed consent to move out. The same letter was sent to seventeen other civil-society and cultural non-governmental organisations working in the spaces of former military barracks, which separates the Autonomous Zone Metelkova from the museum square and facilities belonging to the administration of the Ministry of Culture. Some of these organisations have been using the building since 1994, when it became the property of the Ministry of Culture as a space intended for housing independent and alternative cultural and civil-society initiatives.
The title of the present issue of Maska is thus no mere metaphor. We are in the midst of an active eviction of culture. Not only from M6, but—systematically—from everywhere, which is why we had little choice in coming up with the topic of the present issue. It was dictated by necessity, since we first need to survive, so that we will eventually be able to continue to pursue topics defined by our mission and interests. Not only is the already diminished field of non-governmental culture and art being further constricted, and the spaces of creativity, theory and art production erased overnight (or in broad daylight)—all of this is done in the name of »balance«.
Vol. XXXVI., no. 201-202 (spring 2021)
Editors: Pia Brezavšček in Rok Bozovičar
ISSN 1318-0509
Contents
Jelka Šutej Adamič
In Memoriam
Nevenka Koprivšek
Jasmina Založnik
The Queueing Survival Kit: Passing The Time Creatively
Vesna Hauschild
“To Step on the Stage Naked is Some Form of Coming Out”
Interview with Anita Wach
CRUMBS FROM THE SCENE
Suzana Kajba
Dear Andreja
EVICTION OF CULTURE
Vid Bešter
For Glory
State Celebration and its Building Blocks
Tjaša Pureber
War Against the Experts: the 2020 Staff Tsunami in Culture
Tanja Kerševan Smokvina
Independent, Alternative, Cultural, Specialised, Niche: How the Press Can Survive without the Market and State (or with them)
Anja Radaljac
Sexual Violence: What Do We Talk about when We Talk about Systemic Solutions?
Nevenka Koprivšek, Rok Vevar
The Problematics of Spaces for Performing Arts in Slovenia
Urška Savič
Old Factory no. 72
Tomaž Zaniuk
Independent Culture Up a Blind Alley of Politicised Cultue and Commercialised Student Organisations
Kaja Kranek
From The Neoliberal to The Visegrad Cultural Policy?
Zsolt Miklosvolgyi in Mario Z. Nemes
“Who Should We Hate Today?” Notes from an Illiberal Laboratory
BOOK CLUB
Aljaž Škrlep
Talk od the Devil It’s the Virus? In Person.
Leo Rafolt: Virus in fabula (2020, Meandar Media)