"Dramaturges and editors share the fact, among other things, that our work often remains invisible. Solid and thorough editorial work is mostly invisibly embedded in journals, books and other publications we create every day, and it actually permeates every page of every edition we conceive from the first idea through careful collection, reading, thinking, deleting, turning things inside out and upside down, checking, translating, correspondence, meetings, proofreading and correction, and there is a lot more of this before we get to proofs, print and public events we devise after the journals, books and publications have already reached the bookshelves in bookshops and in subscribers’ and readers’ homes."
This is how Amelia Kraigher, the almost former editor of the last 48 issues of Maska journal (as well as 24 books, released by Maska institute in the same period), begins her penultimate introduction to the journal's most recent issue.
Thanks to Amelia's invitation, I contributed some essays and reviews to Maska myself. Since Maska is a referential journal internationally, it helped me to get noticed, which is great - especially if you, like we do (artists and other people, working in the arts in Slovenia), need the permission of the state to work legally - and, importantly - also get your social security financed by the state.
I am grateful for the opportunity that Amelia gave me also because, personally, the shift of my previous focus on feminist street art (graffiti, interventions, performances) to performance and dance, (mostly) happening off the streets, opened a new world for me. To my joy, the latest issue of Maska journal, nr. 189-190, is subtitled "The Feminists in the Spotlight". It features Alenka Spacal's essay on the amazing gender/genre-changer Bridge Markland, Jennie Klein's article on the feminist performance scene in Singapore, and my interview with the London-based editor of HYSTERIA.
In the e-mail interview, made in 2016 and entitled "Pleasure in Performing a Jagged Version of Femininity" the Hysteria editor says:
"Personally, I do not look for art in the museum or on stage. I find art on the streets, on the dark web, on Tumblr, etc., definitely not in the “art world”. Whenever I am in those contexts, and I have to admit that those are the contexts where my performances are often found, I become bored and uninspired. What I find here is merely reproductions of something old. I’m not interested in that. I long for quick movements, discomfort, violence, destructions and unbecomings in both art and politics and I only find this outside “art” and “politics” due to the institutionalisation and capitalisation of these concepts."
The latest issue of Maska also features Mala Kline's essay "Communal Dreaming: Beyond the 'We' We Know". I'm glad I could participate in one part of this dreamy project (Dream Hostel CII, 2014) at City of Women Festival in Ljubljana. That year, I was blogging for the festival and wrote (together with Cyprian Laskowski) an article, inspired by Dream Hostel CII, a 23-hour performance where the audience was invited for a sleep-over and to enter a specific form of dream exchange.
Bon voyage, Maska, may the new editor be as bright, decisive and supportive as the past one was.
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