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
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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).