Edited by: Prelom kolektiv (Dušan Grlja, Vladimir Jerić Vlidi, Jelena Vesić)
Contributors: Erden Kosova, Dušan Grlja, Jelena Vesić, Vladimir Jerić Vlidi, Zeynep Gambetti, Rastko Močnik, Şükrü Argın, Balca Ergener, Tanıl Bora, Siren İdemen – Ferhat Kentel – Meltem Ahıska – Fırat Genç, Oksana Shatalova, Vartan Jaloyan, Brian Holmes
The first issue of Red Thread examines the place of art and cultural production amidst global and local politics across a broad geography centered on Turkey — encompassing the Balkans, the South Caucasus, the Middle East, and North Africa. It invites reflection on the similarities and differences within this region and explores the crises of representation, institutions, and collectivity, alongside possibilities for cultural resistance and intervention.
Excerpt from the editorial text:
“… How does contemporary art as subject (both as a topic and as a manifestation of different artists, curators, art critics and theorists) get positioned within the broader field of cultural and socio-political contexts (between global neo-liberal multicultural policies and local national cultures)? Do we, as the actors in the field of contemporary art, intellectual production and culture in general get stuck between those two positions, unable to escape being attached to either one of them? Furthermore, how could practices of resistance and/or intervention in culture be imagined and realized? How do we relate to “reality” that is under constant re-construction by the technologies of neo-liberal capitalism? How do we re-appropriate the damaged concepts of “left” politics? In other words, how could artistic and cultural productions be political within the current crisis of representation both in art and politics?”
