‘Workshop: HOW TO PROTEST’ by Agnietė Lisičkinaitė, Lithuania, photo: Gintare Zaltauskaite / Santarcangelo FestivalMO: In my opinion, such thinking beyond the compulsion to produce and support a long artistic search is part of a critical view of the phenomenon of the festivalisation of culture and the public sphere, which is associated with ad hocness, temporariness and a focus on quick results.
TK: I’m glad you’re talking about it and recognizing it. This critical thought already occurred to me at the stage of submitting my competition application. I felt that the festival’s formula did not require any significant changes and that I would find myself well within its framework built on what is interdisciplinary, progressive and political. But it seemed important to me to engage the festival in long-term activities that would also take place between editions. It was clear to me that we were financially unable to afford co-productions. To build projects with a long duration which do not necessarily involve a finished production to be presented during the festival was just the answer to this situation for me. It was also about removing the pressure to ensure that everything we do finds its concrete result during the festival. Very quickly, we began working on developing a very extensive residency program, including both residencies carried out in Santarcangelo and outside of Italy. I’m pleased that most of the Italian artists who’ll show their works during this year’s edition are people with whom we have been in deep dialogue over the past years, supporting them in various ways, but this support was not strictly production- or presentation-oriented.
MO: I would describe this attitude as seeing the festival not as an event but as an institution with a broader mission.
TK: Yes, that thinking is the key. We certainly don’t think of the festival as an event – more as an experience. For a festival that has such a history, tradition and position, the question of mission and role is very important, as is reflecting on what we do with the privilege we have. Festival programming and working in a public institution is a privilege. Working with public funds makes this reflection a must.
MO: This year’s edition is held under the theme ‘While We Are Here’, and in the curatorial text you write, among other things, about parallel armed conflicts or the death penalty still in force in the world. What was your idea about addressing these issues through the program?
TK: In curatorial decisions, I always start with the artists and their practices. I never work on predetermined themes, and I don’t make up a slogan for myself to which I then look for works. Rather, it’s only after building a program that I try to understand what the elements are that connect the various artistic proposals. The whole story of the festival begins when the program is closed. For the first time, the festival’s slogan is the title of one of the performances, as While We Are Here is the work of Belgian artist Lisa Vereertbrugghen. I remember that, when she was telling me about her show before I saw it, I told her that this title was brilliant, that there was something very powerful and timely about this phrase. The works we’re showing this year are united by a focus on being in a situation and being in process, including in a community context. On the other hand, the ritualistic trait outside the sacred context is strong. There are questions about what repetition means, what is art of a durational type [performances that emphasize time as a material, based on it’s being of long periods of time, ed.]. These are interesting creative directions, which are also important in the very consideration of the essence of the festival, reflecting on what it means to participate in a festival today at all. Santarcangelo takes place in July, in a beautiful Italian town. The context of ‘festa’, of celebration, is strong. But for me it’s very important not to forget that the fact that we can participate in this and carry out some kind of reflection on art together is, again, some kind of privilege. What happens outside this space should be present in our thinking and actions.