POLITICAL SCHOOL FOR ARTISTS (AND ALL INTERESTED) 2024: THE CALL COMES FROM THE FOREST
POLITICAL SCHOOL FOR ARTISTS (AND ALL INTERESTED) 2024
THE CALL COMES FROM THE FOREST
Are you an artist, a cultural worker, a journalist, a film worker, or an activist? Would you like to tackle social problems through your practice, but have an impression you lack theoretical and historical knowledge? Do you see in your surroundings and in the media, and experience first hand that capitalism is bad and that it creates inequality and injustice globally, but sometimes lack arguments to support it and explain how and why it happens? Are you confused by the statement that the working class does not exist any more, because you know very well that without your own work you cannot survive, not even for a month? Would you like to strengthen your knowledge, necessary for a discussion with people who have right-wing views and those who advocate capitalism? Would you like to connect with the others who are interested in leftist perspective and the fight against fascism, capitalism, sexism, transphobia, and racism?
Apply to our Political School for artists (and all interested)!
Although primarily intended for artists and cultural workers, the School is open to all those who wish to gain an insight into basic theoretical concepts and the history of capitalist social relations, as well as their socialist alternative. That knowledge is usually cast off or underrepresented in formal education. At the same time, while we gain political education in an informal environment, though the media, culture, social networks, and in the streets, we often have an impression that we are missing certain key links, arguments, and explanations.
The 7th edition of the Political school for artists is organized in collaboration with the Culture Department of the Serb National Council (SNV), in order to mark the 80th anniversary of the First Congress of Cultural Workers in June 1944 in the town of Topusko, with the participation of artists and cultural workers who took part in the antifascist struggle.
In the invitation to the Congress, Vladimir Nazor wrote: "And that call is coming from the forest, the reliable and miraculous partisan forest, while the people’s uprising is still active, the struggle for liberation has not yet ended."
The School Program is structured into five afternoon sessions (Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4 p.m. – 8 p.m.) in Zagreb, and one block in Topusko (Friday, June 28 – Sunday, June 30).
The Political School is free of charge, including the travel and accommodation expenses, as well as meals in Topusko. The number of participants is limited.
Please send your applications to blok@blok.hr (subject: Political School 2024) by May 24, 2024.
The applicants will be informed by June 1, at the latest, whether they have been accepted.
The application must contain the following: name and last name, DOB, education (formal or informal), institution or organization (if you are employed or active in an organization or a collective), and a short motivational letter (up to two pages) in which you should state why you are interested in the Political School and if, and how well, you are familiar with the topics.
Previous knowledge of the topics, or previous activity, as well as age, is not a precondition nor an advantage in the selection of participants. That information will only help us prepare the content. The program is not intended for Ph.D. students, nor is its general purpose to support individual academic progress, but it rather focuses on fostering political awareness, democratization of knowledge, and building a collective. The participants will be selected on the basis of their motivation, their ability to regularly attend sessions, and readiness to participate in collective work.
***PROGRAM***
ZAGREB
Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 4 pm. – 8 p.m.
1. Wednesday, June 12
Stipe Ćurković: What we talk about when we talk about 'classes'?
Ankica Čakardić: The age of capitalism: force, proletarianization of peasants, and the market
2. Thursday, June 13
Jakov Kolak: How did we gain workers’ rights?
Delavska svetovalnica (Workers Counseling Office): Organizing of foreign workers
3. Wednesday, June 19
Andreja Gregorina: Red feminism
Espi Tomičić: Trans and gender-variant persons in Croatia: health and legal framework in relation to the political context of strengthening of the right wing movement
4. Thursday, June 20
Hrvoje Radovanović: Climate and capitalism
Krešimir Zovak: Contradictions of the socialist state: The example of Yugoslavia
5. Wednesday, June 26
Ivana Perić: Palestine and Israel – workers’ perspectives before and during 1948
Nikola Vukobratović: How does colonialism shape the world?
TOPUSKO
Friday, June 28. – Sunday, June 30
Friday, June 28
Igor Drvendžija: From AVNOJ to ZAVNOH
SNV Culture Department, Tena Bakšaj, Nikola Puharić, and Aneta Vladimirov: Minority pedagogy of memory in three examples
Vesna Vuković: From art of resistance to cultural revolution
Saturday, June 29
KURS: Linocut workshop
Sunday, June 30
KURS: Linocut workshop
Igor Mrkalj: Excursion to the partisan metropolis
Organized by: BLOK
Co-organizer in Topusko: Serb National Council (SNV) Culture Department
Designed by: Nikola Križanac
PROGRAM IS FINANCIALLY SUPPORTED BY THE ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG SOUTHEAST EUROPE. The program, as part of marking the 80th anniversary of the Third Session of ZAVNOH in Topusko and the First Congress of Cultural Workers in the liberated territory of Croatia, was supported by Government Office for Human Rights and Rights of National Minorities. BLOK's annual program for 2024 is supported by the 'Kultura Nova' foundation.
