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Description
This project is a response to a political and media hate campaign aimed at minorities and promotion by the ruling camp of ultraconservative, discriminatory ideas in education, the media, culture, and art. Homophobic and anti-Semitic statements during the 2020 presidential campaign, or local council LGBT-free zone resolutions are just a few examples. In recent years, the culture and art sector has been subjected to restriction of artistic freedom and politicised to an unprecedented degree. Independent and progressive institutions are cut off from public funds, and others have undergone radical reorganisation. As a result of this policy, cultural and art institutions practically do not take up the subject of minorities and equality.Under the project, a group of artists will be given training on being active in the community and working within an alliance with self-advocacy organisations. The artists will attend five workshops on minority and international activism, and will produce a series of podcasts on intersecting oppressed identities. At the end of the project, with mentoring, they will create three artistic works, which will be displayed publicly. There will also be open talks given by equality organisations.Primarily, a group of ten artists with non-normative identities will benefit from the project, as well as the pro-equality CSOs themselves. On a micro scale, this will strengthen the alliance between the social sector and the cultural and art sector. The participants will share their experiences on methods of self-organisation, objecting, and grass-roots awareness-raising practices; they will improve their competences relating to working collectively or strategies for conducting campaigns to help minorities. The project will provide training for artists to practice socially engaged art that draws attention to minority rights.
Summary of project results
The project responds to the need to integrate communities working at the intersection of art and activism, interested in queer issues, feminism, socially engaged art and building social diversity. The idea for the activities stems from the homophobic, transphobic, anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric of the ruling majority and the initiatives they support in the fields of education, media and culture. Examples include the homophobic presidential campaign, the resolutions of Polish municipalities declaring themselves ''LGBT-free zones'', the violent attacks on anti-fascist and equality demonstrations and demonstrations, the ruling party''s anti-refugee and racist narrative since the 2015 elections. Recent years have been marked by drastic reductions in public funding for more progressive cultural institutions and radical changes in the governing bodies of institutions under the ministries. Government-funded organisations and projects, if they do not explicitly represent conservative attitudes, remain passive in the face of the problem of discrimination, homophobia, transphobia and hate speech directed towards LGBTQIA+ people. The effect of this cultural policy is to marginalise any anti-discrimination work carried out by cultural institutions.
The project included 5 workshops and 5 public workshop/lecture meetings, as well as 3 public screenings of artworks. A series of podcasts were also recorded. A group of 13 activists and artists took part in the workshops and then produced their own shows. The workshops covered a wide range of topics: enhancing the visibility of marginalised groups, engaging politically with art in the face of new challenges such as the war in Ukraine, exploring inclusive performative-educational tools to include people with disabilities, using the medium of sound as a tool to build queer archives and document creative processes. The workshops were led by people from groups and organisations that work with the above methods and in the above areas on a daily basis. The open public meetings were, in a way, an extension of the closed workshops and aimed at a wider dissemination of the practices and methods developed by the invited initiatives and organisations.
The project has created a consortium of NGOs and informal collectives that work with queer-feminist methodologies on a daily basis and want to support marginalised communities. New collaborations and alliances were formed between different organisations and groups, and a platform for sharing practices and experiences was created. Through the project, smaller initiatives and collectives gained visibility and recognition. The direct target group of the project was 13 artists and activists, who were selected during an open call. Indirectly, the project also targeted a wider group of people interested in cultural diversity and experimental educational practices. A total of around 600 people were able to attend 5 public meetings and 3 showings of works. In the absence of systemic, institutional support for the LGBTQIA+ community, the project had an impact on strengthening minority voices in the public debate, supporting marginalised artists and their work.