Presentation of 'Stiff Smiles' in Vienna, Feb. 21st 2014

OFENNÄCHTE presents

Stiff Smiles, a new art zine by Tea Hvala

followed by the presentation of the book by Tea Hvala (ed.) about Red Dawns Festival Rdečke razsajajo! Intervjuji z organizatorkami feminističnega in kvirovskega festivala Rdeče zore (KUD Mreža, Ljubljana, 2010)

and

presentation of Red Dawns Festival 2014 by Slobodan Malić.

Friday, February 21th at 19h at VN JAEGER & SCHWARZWALD - artist run space, Neustiftgasse 48, 1070 Vienna

Entrance fee € 2.-

Facebook event

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Tea Hvala
Togi nasmehi / Stiff Smiles
Self-published, Ljubljana, 2013
A5, 32 pages, 7 b/w photos
in Slovene / English

A pessimistic take on the flexibilisaton of labour, or an essay comparing what cannot be compared: long-term, collective and manual factory labour during Yugoslav state socialism with, on the other hand, flexible, individual, and project-based intellectual work in neoliberal times.

The art zine Stiff Smiles features a modified version of the essay, first published in: Aleš Čar, Tanja Petrič (eds.): The State of Matters: Anthology of Perspectives & Reflections, Ljubljana, UMco, 2012, pp. 82-85. Photos are taken from Jubilejni zbornik: 35 let Iskre, Industrije za telekomunikacije, elektrotehniko in elektromehaniko Kranj, Kranj, 1981. Tea Hvala's portrait was taken by Nino Vinko Jaeger.

»With whom are you to take a picture, if you are a contract worker, if your jobs come and go? With whom, if your co-workers constantly change, and with whom, if you work from the employer’s home or even in your own room?«

»The flexible job, if she has one, dictates her sloppiness, distance, risk, mobility. Therefore, when she wishes for safety, she feels old. When she wishes for permanence and stability, she feels like a coward. When she commits herself to her work completely, she is regarded as naive. When she tries more than it is necessary, she gets the feeling of being foolish. When she tries to construct her own life story from countless fragments, she feels like she has nothing to lean on. Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t even exist. How is she to face all this uncertainty?«

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Tea Hvala (ed.)
Rdečke razsajajo!
Intervjuji z organizatorkami feminističnega in kvirovskega festivala Rdeče zore
KUD Mreža, Ljubljana, 2010
A5, 104 pages 32 b/w photos
in Slovene / English
.

In 2010, on the 10th anniversary of Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns (in Slovene, Rdeče zore), Tea Hvala interviewed seventeen former and current festival organizers about their contribution to the visibility of feminist and queer publics in Slovenia. She juxtaposed these insights with feminist political theory of counterpublics, and framed the theme in the context of the recent history of feminist, lesbian and queer organizing in Ljubljana, as well as the contemporary current of transnational DIY grassroots feminism.

Interviewees: Anna Ehrlemark, Mirjana Frank, Danaja Grešak, Ana Grobler, Jasmina Jerant, Ana Jereb, Anja Kocman, Jadranka Ljubičič, Urška Merc, Slađana Mitrović, Lidija Radojević, Nataša Serec, Tanja Škander, Suzana Tratnik, Daša Tepina and Vesna Vravnik. Interviews with Anna Ehrlemark and Jasmina Jerant are in English, the rest of the book is in Slovene. Cover by Anna Ehrlemark.

"Red Dawns continues to play an important role as an explicit point of artistic, political or philosophic identification with feminist or queer perspectives. (...) If you accept this frame of reference, you have to accept the consequences since people are going to associate you with it, and in that sense, I think that continuity of feminism is of essential importance. It is a deliberate move away from universality as well as an idea that brought us together. (...) The bottom line is that these alternative spaces are developing strong and critical perspective on society. They are marginal and fabulous." – Slađana Mitrović

The publication of this book was supported by many donators, The Municipality of Ljubljana – Youth Office, and the Ministry of Education and Sports – Youth Office.

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Tea Hvala is a writer and organizer with a BA in Comparative Literature, BA in Sociology of Culture, and MA in Gender Studies. She has been facilitating In Other Wor(l)ds, workshops in collaborative writing of feminist-queer science fiction since 2008. Her recent co-edited books include Svetovi drugih (2010) and Rdečke razsajajo! (2011), her essays about local feminist activism and public space reclaiming have been published in several academic anthologies. She co-hosts Sektor Ž, a monthly feminist radio show at Radio Študent, and has been co-organizing the International Feminist and Queer Festival Rdeče zore (Red Dawns) since 2002. Her most recent self-published art zine is called Stiff Smiles (2013).

Sektor Ž: Reproduktivne pravice v času kiberfeminizma / Reproductive rights in cyberfeminist times

Na kulturni dan bomo v Sektorju Ž govorile o nekulturnih vsebinah, ki postajajo evropski vsakdanjik. Od decembra 2013 španska desnica, ki ima večino v parlamentu, "svojim" državljankam grozi z vnovičnim omejevanjem seksualnih in reproduktivnih pravic;s strogo omejitvijo pravice do prekinitve nosečnosti. Grožnja ni omejena na Španijo; za osnovne reproduktivne pravice je prikrajšanih vse več žensk v Evropski uniji, saj v mnogih državah dostop do splava onemogoča tako restriktivna zakonodaja kot pravica zdravnikov do ugovora vesti. Po protestu pred Špansko ambasado v Ljubljani minulo soboto, 1. februarja, je Tea Hvala intervjuvala feministični aktivistki Stefanio in Amando iz kolektiva Corrente Alternata, ki v Barceloni sodelujeta v množičnih protestih proti restriktivnemu predlogu zakona o seksualnih in reproduktivnih pravicah žensk, slovenski solidarnostni protest in aktualno dogajanje v Španiji pa bomo umestile v širši kontekst vse bolj konservativnih politik v mnogih državah v Evropski uniji.

Istega dne se je Ida Hiršenfelder na berlinskem festivalu CTM udeležila posveta o ženskah, ki delujejo na področju elektronske glasbe in digitalnih medijev. Na pogovoru, kjer se je teorija dobro prepletala s prakso, so povabili DJ-ko in producentko Electric Indigo (Susanne Kirchmayr), tonsko tehnico / tehnika Fender Schrade in teoretičarki Sadie Plant ter Marie Thompson. Po poročilu s posveta sledijo napovedi zanimivih dogodkov, ki se obetajo v prihodnjem mesecu - vključno s prvo napovedjo programa 15. feminističnega in queerovskega festivala Rdeče zore, ki se kaže na obzorju v začetku marca.

V soboto, 8. februarja ob 12:00 v živo na Radiu Študent. Na povezavi je dostopen tudi posnetek oddaje.

Tea Hvala is going to interview Stefania and Amanda, feminist activists from Barcelona and members of collective Corrente Alternata, who are going to talk about massive protests in Spain against the conservative law proposal from December 2103 that would repress women's sexual and reproductive rights in Spain by severely limiting the right of women to terminate pregnancy. The interview is going to be followed by a short report from the solidarity protest at the Spanish Embassy in Ljubljana on February 1st, and discussed in the context of increasingly repressive policies about women's sexual and reproductive rights in several member states of the European Union.

Ida Hiršenfelder prepared a report from a public discussion about women in the field of electronic music and digital media that took place on February 1st at the CTM festival in Berlin. The discussion featured the DJane and producer Electric Indigo (Susanne Kirchmayr), sound technician Fender Schrade and researchers Sadie Plant and Marie Thompson, all of whom successfully mixed their experience with theoretical insights. The radio show is going to conclude with invitations to future events and the first public announcement of the program of the 15. International Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns, coming up in early March in Ljubljana.

Saturday, February 8th, at 12:00 live at Radio Študent. At the link, you can access the recording anytime after the show.