Yugofuturisms Conference

We would like to invite our community to an event organized by Associate Professor Bojana Videkanic (Fine Arts), Dragana Obradovic (UofT Slavic Studies) and Zdenko Mandusic (UofT Slavic Studies). Featuring over forty speakers, this four-day series is dedicated to exploring Yugoslavia's legacy and future. Yugofuturisms conference is organized as part of the recently established New Yugoslav Studies Association - Toronto Chapter. It will take place from April 10 to 13 at the University of Waterloo - Department of Fine Arts. Those who cannot join us in-person will be able to follow most of the panels via Zoom. Apart from eleven panels and roundtables, the conference will feature a film screening program, a live art performance, and a concert with local bands. (View the conference schedule (PDF).) 

If you are interested, please join us by registering at the Eventbrite site. You will receive a zoom link for each day of the conference. The event is free and open to public as we hope to attract both academic and non-academic participants. Please find attached poster with a schedule and a QR code for Eventbrite, along with detailed description of panels and panelists.

If you live in the Greater Toronto Area, you are welcome to join us in person at the University of Waterloo, East Campus Hall (Room 1205), street address: 263 Phillip St, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G12. There is a visitor parking (the Q Lot) near our building for $7 a day. 

This event is supported by a SSHRC Connection Grant and co-sponsored by Departments of Fine Arts and Germanic and Slavic Studies. 

If you have any questions regarding registration, travel to Waterloo, or require additional information about the conference, please contact me at: bojana.videkanic@uwaterloo.ca

We hope to see you at the event in person or online!

Yugofuturisms: Theoretical & Methodological Interventions

Pia Brezavšček, Hana Ćurak, Dijana Jelača, Darko Suvin, Bojana Videkanić (chair)

The opening panel will delve into the concept of Yugofuturism, examining its theoretical and methodological possibilities, its historical context, and potential for future political work. We will explore Yugoslavia’s longer and more recent history, highlighting some of the state's material achievements and its utopian characteristics. The discussion will address the limitations and possibilities of the term, emphasizing how the legacy of socialist Yugoslavia can inspire new political strategies.

Why Yugoslavia Now?

Sezgin Boynik, Slobodan Karamanic, Gal Kirn, Dominick Lawton, Djordje Popović (chair), Milica Popović, Ljubica Spaskovska

A roundtable that invites a critical discussion on the relevance of Yugoslavia for the present and future. We will explore the meaning of Yugoslavia's various emancipatory ideals, and its political, social, and economic history. By examining recent scholarly efforts and the resurgence of interest in the Yugoslav experience, we aim to highlight why these ideas are crucial now more than ever.

Roundtable discussion with all participants

People's Art in Yugoslavia: Artists, Institutions, Policies

Ana Hofman, Jelena Sofronijević, Ljubica Spaskovska, Bojana Videkanić (chair), Natalija Vujosevic

People's Art will explore emancipatory forms of cultural production in Yugoslavia and the Post-Yugoslav region, both at institutional and individual levels. From Non-Aligned cultural institutions, to self-taught artistic production and large-scale solidarity projects, we will examine how culture was created from "below," aesthetic and artistic relevance of such work, democratization of cultural production, and including those cultural producers traditionally excluded from bourgeois culture.

Yugoslav Diasporic Interventions

Jasmina Cibic, Christian Guerematchi, Mateja Meded, Nataša Mackuljak, Jasmina Tumbas (chair)

For this roundtable, Jasmina Tumbas is in conversation with four artists currently working in the diaspora. Their works pose interventions against the erasure of emancipatory and anti-fascist solidarities at the core of Yugoslav socialism. Joining us from the contexts of London, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Berlin, the roundtable participants will consider: What does Yugofuturism mean to them, and how does it shape their practice in the diaspora? How and why is it part of the feminist and/or queer political commitments in their work? What role can Yugofuturism play as a force of intervention in current debates about politics and resistance in contemporary art and performance?

Yugoslav/Post-Yugo Film

Dijana Jelača, Zdenko Mandušić (chair), Dragana Obradović, Antje Postema, Nace Zavrl

Yugoslav/Post-Yugo Film will explore Yugoslav cinematography as a vital legacy for contemporary and future directors, filmmakers, and film scholars from the former Yugoslavia. We will discuss various aspects of this topic, including the research, preservation, and restoration of YU cinema archives, historical reframing beyond Cold War dichotomies, and the continuities and breaks in genres and themes from YU to post-YU cinema. Additionally, we will examine state support and control, the aesthetic legacies of auteur cinema, and the virtual life of YU cinema through online circulation and sharing

Out of the Ruins of (post) Yugoslav Literature

Ellen Elias-Bursać, Theo Jefferies, Nataša Kovačević, Genta Nishku, Dragana Obradović (chair), Djordje Popović, Ena Selimović

This roundtable interrogates visions of a future Yugoslav culture sedimented in the ruins of Yugoslav literature. What form does literature take after a catastrophe? In what ways are its expressive possibilities limited to the work of mourning, bearing witness, and preserving what little remains? Or does it already contain within itself a blueprint of a future difficult to imagine otherwise? Each presentation will focus on excavating traces of a lost future in the works of Dubravka Ugrešić, Daša Drndić, Bekim Sejranović, Damir Karakaš, Darko Cvijetić, and more. [sponsored by Germanic & Slavic Department, UW]

Film Screenings

1. Tamara Vukov Tranzicija Triptychs 2023
2. Bojan Stojčić Hope Hotel Phantom 2023
3. Bojan Stojčić Steel Hotel Song 2024

Yugofuturisms and Art in Transition

Isak Berbić, Andreja Dugandžić, Nataša Prljević, Bojan Stojčić, Žana Kozomora (chair), Tamara Vukov

This roundtable will highlight the work of contemporary artists who live in the ‘region’ and in diaspora. The conversation will focus on the question of how artwork is produced in relation to the processes of dispossession, destruction, and systematic devaluation of the socialist state (since 1990). The panelists will also address the role art plays in the restoration of capitalism, or how it might play a role as an emancipatory force.

Who's Afraid of Socialist Feminism

Lilijana Burcar, Silvia Federici, Olena Lyubchenko, Katja Praznik (chair)

In the face of relentless liberal feminist distortions of socialist feminist history and erasures of its emancipatory legacy, this panel will discuss the historical achievements of socialist feminism—including the accomplishments challenging systemic patriarchy in socialist Yugoslavia, such as full-time employment for women, accompanied by equal social and workers’ rights, independent of their marriage status. The speakers will discuss the central conceptual distinctions that separate liberal feminist approaches from socialist and anti-capitalist feminism in practice and theory. The aim of the panel is to challenge uncritical adoption of liberal feminist ideologies prevalent in the capitalist West, and to put front and center radical anti-capitalist and socialist strands of feminist theory and practice that are based on an understanding of interconnected and co-constitutive nature of patriarchy and capitalism.

Beyond the ‘POST’

Stefan Gužvica, Slobodan Karamanić, Danijela Majstorović, Tijana Okić, Bojana Videkanić (chair)

The last panel in our schedule challenges the prevalent use of the term "post" (post-Yugoslav, post-socialist, post-history, etc.) and seeks to reframe our understanding of the socialist Yugoslavia, moving from post to next. Rather than viewing socialism and Yugoslavia as concluded chapters of a failed history, we will explore how their legacies can be a foundation for contemporary and future organizing. Special attention to be placed on organizational and active forms of work in the light of current geopolitical, economic, social and cultural challenges.

Live Performance

Bojan Stojcic (Sarajevo)

Community Social Event

Live music and reception featuring Shareni Bombarder (Toronto) and DJ Bogetz (Hamilton)

Workshop: What is to be Done?

All participants online and in-person

Participants will discuss possible organizing efforts, strategize and plan collaboration and future work, including a possible publication of the proceedings of the conference.