Private nationalism

• The Approach Art Association has been in operation for nineteen years in Pecs, Hungary.00:00:07.082
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• It is an association of contemporary art whose aim is to integrate young artists00:00:15.382
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• in the international public sphere, and to organize events00:00:20.964
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• that creates large international forums.00:00:27.104
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• It is these objectives that the exhibition "Private Nationalism" aims to meet as well:00:00:30.474
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• it attempts to create an international forum.00:00:36.599
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• I have been working on this idea as an artist for quite some time.00:00:40.217
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• I have created a painting series based on Hedvig Malina's case00:00:46.310
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• And in 2010 it left a lasting impression on me when I saw the quote-unquote "Slota wax-works"00:00:52.904
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• of the Kassa Boys formation, which envisioned the Slovakian right-wing politician's statements00:01:01.675
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• pertaining to Hungarians in the form of a wax-works display.00:01:08.467
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• It was at that point that the idea occurred to me that it would be interesting00:01:21.000
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• to put together an exhibition that examines nationalism00:01:27.137
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• from a Central Eastern European perspective.00:01:35.329
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• In the end, we were able to establish a larger-scale collaborative project:00:01:42.266
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• A curatorial team with participants from the Visegrad Four was established,00:01:46.728
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• which began to make plans for the "Private Nationalism" exhibition,00:01:52.074
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• and consider the artists that could be involved in it.00:01:57.099
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• Later, when the EU call also came into the picture, Turkish and German partners were also added.00:02:02.100
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• From this point on, curatorial meetings were realized with the participation of six countries.00:02:13.015
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• The "Private Nationalism" project has a number of elements: it consists not only of exhibitions,00:02:24.080
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• but also of artist-in-residency programs and museum pedagogy programs.00:02:31.393
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• A closing conference is also planned for the end.00:02:37.483
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• The exhibitions of the "Private Nationalism" project differ from each other00:02:44.393
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• not only for technical or practical reasons, but also because we felt it was important for these00:02:54.443
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• various exhibitions to reflect on local questions. There were a number of such local aspects00:03:01.934
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• that came into play in connection with the Pecs exhibition, including, for example,00:03:08.638
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• the economic aspect of nationalism: in other words, what happened in this country00:03:14.846
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• from a social standpoint after the regime change, especially in this region.00:03:21.000
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• And the situation of the minorities, which in Baranya County an especially crucial issue.00:03:26.695
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• We defined various thematics for the exhibition.00:03:35.035
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• In general, we felt it important to explore the 19th century roots of nationalism.00:03:37.698
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• We also engaged the topics of national memory, national narrative or canon, as well.00:03:45.443
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• But we also considered it important to represent questions that are essentially of a social or00:03:53.576
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• economic origin, such as migration, or issues that originate from political conflict.00:03:59.576
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• The central aim of the exhibition, however, is to present that00:04:07.720
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• which points past nationalist narrative.00:04:15.317
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• In other words, how can we imagine the nation as a receiving entity? How can we even speak about00:04:22.845
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• the nation outside the framework that has defined discourse in the past hundred years?00:04:30.125
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• I think that the exhibition avoids taking a stand in certain questions,00:04:36.418
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• for example, whether there is a need for the nation at all. And I think this is important00:04:44.304
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• because it leaves this question open and shows that00:04:52.526
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• there are indeed certain concepts of nation that can be relevant today.00:05:01.091
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• For example, I was surprised to see that in South America, or, especially in certain parts00:05:09.000
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• of the Third World, this type of nationalist sentiment or ideology brings up00:05:17.000
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• the most progressive social thoughts. After a while, the more I explored this question00:05:22.948
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• the less I saw as nationalistic what we regard as nationalistic in Hungary today.00:05:29.291
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• Simply because an ideology that excludes a large part of the nation00:05:36.467
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• should not necessarily be called nationalistic. It is for this reason that I feel it is important00:05:45.594
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• that when we talk about minorities, we should also consider the economic or social aspects,00:05:55.693
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• because this is not only a question of human rights, but also a social one.00:06:06.191
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• Perhaps it is Alban Muja's photo series that best illustrates what can be understood by00:06:15.657
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• private nationalism. When Kosovo was still part of Yugoslavia in the '70s and '80s,00:06:22.626
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• and family members couldn't see each other on a daily basis00:06:30.163
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• on the two sides of the border, in Albania and Kosovo,00:06:38.100
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• many children in Kosovo were named after Albanian cities.00:06:48.100
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• Such instances where personal identities and individual life paths come together like this00:06:57.613
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• with quite abstract, nostalgic community sentiments can be rather moving.00:07:06.000

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