Cultural mediation challenged by social practice

Yana Klichuk, Manifesta

Social practice evokes debates in existing social eco-systems. Sometimes it aims at social or political change. Sometimes though it interacts and exchanges with various communities on particular topics enriching the debate with different opinions. Principles of social engagement in programming (art, cultural mediation, curatorship) are not confined to projects and their participants, but rather challenge the way we work, collaborate, formulate and reach our goals. We all believe that co-creation is part of our practice, but do we actually treat participants equal? Or do we stay in the position of bringing “good” to the “disadvantaged”?

During this talk, several Manifesta community-engaging projects will be revisited bringing in two main reflections: What are our habits and difficulties in leaving space to participants to reshape the projects and what are our habits and difficulties in sharing protagonism in decision-making and creative processes.