Theoretical Critical Horizons: Shifting Baselines was published as part of the Shifting Baselines, an international project by Goethe Institut, Association Nagib, and Austrian Cultural Forum, and is available here>
Edited by Jovita Pristovšek and Marina Gržinić
Authors: Marina Gržinić, Tjaša Kancler, Aleksandar Kraus, Shkëlzen Maliqi, Anyely Marín Cisneros, Dragomir Olujić Oluja, Stanimir Panayotov, Jovita Pristovšek, Šefik Tatlić.
In order to respond to the project’s initial questions “What are the ‘shifting baselines’ to which we are now subjected? Which effects will become apparent in the future? How can we recognize, visualize and respond adequately today?” (Maribor Theatre Festival 2018), we decided to structure this publication by mixing the contributions from two different lines. One line is formed by invited positions from Macedonia, Slovenia, Slovenia/Spain, and one from Venezuela/Spain, the other is formed by three excerpts of interviews that were conducted in Serbia and Kosovo as part of the FWF PEEK (AR 439) arts and science research project titled Genealogy of Amnesia: Rethinking the Past for a New Future of Conviviality, hosted by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2018–2020).
While the publication does not address directly the territories of Austria and Germany, the ex-Yugoslav territory nevertheless shares with them the violent history of both World Wars and the present moment of the European Union integrating the states of the Western Balkan along with its managing of the Balkan Route. Likewise, the ex-Yugoslav territory and Latin America share common conceptual legacies of the Bandung Conference (1955) and the Non-Aligned Movement (1961), which was formed at the peak of the Cold War and coincided with the process of decolonisation,
which was committed to self-determination of ex-colonies as well as to fight against imperialism, racism, apartheid, and militarisation, to name only a few. As Mbembe (2017, 1) stated, we live in a time when “history and all things flow toward us” and “Europe is no longer the center of gravity of the world,” implying not only Europe’s provincialisation (as we see it happening in the geopolitical sense today), but also the demotion, degradation of its thought. (From the Introduction by Jovita Pristovšek, Marina Gržinić)