[artinfo] Mezosfera - tranzit.hu’s new international online magazine on art and culture / magazine launch

[tranzit.hu office]

tranzit.hu’s new international online magazine on art and culture is
launched with its first thematic issue titled A Weird Geography.

Venue: 1068 Budapest, Kiraly utca 102. I/1.
Time: 4:00-7:00 pm, 29 April, 2016

4:00-5:30 pm
Magazine launch with the introduction of the editorial team and a
public talk with the participation of Katalin Erdodi (independent
curator, guest editor of A Weird Geography), Maja and Reuben Fowkes
(art historians and curators, founders of the Translocal Institute),
Timea Junghaus (curator and cultural activist, initiator of Gallery8 –
Roma Contemporary Art Space), Szabolcs KissPal (artist and activist),
Ovidiu Pop (author, activist, co-editor of Gazeta de Artă Politica /
Gazette of Political Art) and Katarzyna Winiecka (artist, activist,
educator and organizer, founder of the platform and art campaign
“Border Crossing and You (Fluchthilfe & Du)” )

5:30-7:00 pm
Presentation of A Weird Geography with guest editor Katalin Erdodi and
contributors Ovidiu Pop and Katarzyna Winiecka

Mezosfera is an international magazine on art and culture published
and edited by tranzit.hu in Budapest. The magazine, on the one hand,
is a platform for the sharing of knowledge and the building of
solidarity: while also connecting with other non-central geopolitical
regions of the world, it initiates dialogues mainly among the art and
cultural scenes of the region described as Eastern Europe. It
endeavors to discuss how this region with a common but locally varied
communist past confronts the influence of both global and local
socio-political turbulences. On the other hand, Mezosfera also
endeavors to mediate these local and regional discourses to a broader,
international audience.

Drawing on the magazine’s double mission and tranzit.hu’s practices in
general, Mezosfera (mesosphere) is used here as a metaphor for an
intermediary sphere that one occupies with the aim to build horizontal
alliances, through collaborations, co-learning, and mediation, while
also connecting various, often conflicting spheres. In this respect,
Mezosfera as a transdisciplinary platform extends horizontally in
space, between the grassroots and the mainstream or activism and art.
Beyond contemporary art’s local and institutional contexts, Mezosfera
thus also pays particular attention to grassroots, civil initiations;
activist practices; and various forms of self-organization.
Subsequently, the magazine considers contemporary art the terrain of
experimenting that allows for critical reflections, utopian
imagination, as well as social action.

The first thematic issue of Mezosfera titled A Weird Geography
explores the topics of migration, solidarity, and political engagement
through artistic and activist practices. Taking the current polemic
developments in European asylum and migration politics as its point of
departure, it addresses overarching key issues, from the crisis of
citizenship and the challenges of a post-identity politics to the
unequal access to rights and privileges that pervades all phases of
the migration experience from the freedom of movement to the right to
work. It also critically examines the recent “wave of solidarity” and
its discontents, from humanitarian relief work and political activism
to escape aid, human smuggling, and the increasing criminalization of
solidarity.

The presentation of A Weird Geography at the Mezosfera launch will
include a talk with invited contributors, Ovidiu Pop and Katarzyna
Winiecka, as well as the screening of two films included in the
thematic issue. Both parts will focus on invisible—or more precisely,
invisibilized—aspects and phases of the migratory experience, such as
the illegalized movement across borders and countries, the precarious
situation and exploitation of migrant workers, and the increasingly
widespread practice of deportation around Europe. In discussion with
our two guests, we will discuss the potential of artistic and activist
strategies in engaging with the politics of migration, especially
focusing on interventions in public discourses and producing
counter-hegemonic knowledge. The talk and the screening are moderated
and hosted by the curator Katalin Erdődi, editor of A Weird Geography.

The magazine launch is related to the exhibition "Művészeti programtól
a kritikai intézményig: történetek a tranzit. hu 10 éves
tevékenységéből / From Art Program to Critical Institution" (on view
until May 20, 2016 by appointment at office at tranzitinfo.hu or +36 30
570 20 34)

The event is realized as part of Negyed7Negyed8 pészah-i kiadás I Hol a határ?

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