'The idea of "museum as a space for recognizing differences" means...
“The idea of "museum as a space for recognizing differences" means to include the Others as long as they are "recognized" as such by the liberal order. But what to do with the Other who is not recognizable as such, the Other who belongs to the realm that apparently does not exist at all?
I speak here of the Otherness of socialism that managed to produce an ontologically different model of society before its historical failure. One of the few ways to experience this kind of society in real life is through the museum's space.”
Oleksiy Radynski, Filmmaker and Writer, Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv, Ukraine, presented his Perspective during the second day of the congress, under the thematic cluster of Museums as spaces for recognizing differences.
Oleksiy Radynski presents his perspective through his case study dedicated to the specters and aftermath of socialism as a difference that somehow became too radical to be recognized by the institutions of society, such as the museum. At the center of this case is a specter of a proletarian and his various comebacks both within the museum's walls and outside. This is its starting point: a work of art by Soviet sculptor Ivan Shadr called The Stone is a Weapon of the Proletariat, also sometimes called Communist Discobolos, installed in the museum space.
The CIMAM 2021 Annual Conference was held on November 5-7, 2021, hosted as initially planned by the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz and the NOMUS New Art Museum/ Branch of the National Museum in Gdansk, Poland.
During the three days of discussions, the conference focused on the two interconnected current crises of Xenophobia and Climate Change, and the sometimes hidden or unexplored connections between the two.
Keynote speakers and relevant case-study presentations showed how institutions, artists, and thinkers working together can provide practical laboratories concerning these emerging issues and offer methodological tools to combat discriminatory and nationalistic tendencies in an increasingly divisive and divided world.
Learn more about CIMAM's 2021 Annual Conference: