NO MONUMENTS FOR LABOR AND IMMIGRATION
GRAZ, ROTOR & INSTITUTE ART IN PUBLIC SPACE STYRIA, SINCE 2011/2013 (RESEARCH AND PRODUCTION 2011-2013)
In
collaboration with: Joachim Hainzl, Leo Kühberger, Judith Laister, and with the
participation of students of European Ethnology and the residents of the
Annenviertel neighborhood: Yemi Adesuyi Ojumo, Evelyn Ark, Ayten G., Yakut
Benan, Martin Breuss, Bianca Flecker, Tanja Fuchs, Peter Lukas, Oktavian Gillmayr,
Claudia Gross, Michael Jabbour, Pinar
K., Robin Paul Klengel, Emir Kuljuh, Ali Kurt, Claudia Leitinger, Mao Liyi,
Katja Fischer, Aline Marques, Elisabeth Matlschweiger, Fatima Maria N., Anna
Orgler, Piso O., Stefan Postl, Kurt Pöschl,
Andrea Pöschl, Kennedy P., Angela
Prassl, Hildegard Ruhdorfer, Barbara Schmid, Mustafa Seyhan, Kadir Smailović, Heide
Spitzer, Nora Kim Steinbach, Kristina Stocker, Daniela Stradner, Kurosch U.,Karoline Walter, Katrin Wankhammer,
Michael Windisch.
NO MONUMENTS FOR LABOR AND IMMIGRATION was a
multifaceted interdisciplinary artistic and research project based in the
Annenviertel neighborhood of Graz in the period 2011-2013. It focused on the spatial
overlapping of the local labor history with the history of migrations. A collaborative-participatory
field and historical research on sites related to the labor movement,
encounters and social gatherings on those sites, and a production of related
texts, all culminated in a series of eight text-based interventions in public
space. Several institutions and over forty individuals contributed to the
project, inaugurated on May 1st, 2013 by the means of an alternative May Day rally.
The project is still on view in public space (January 2021).
NO MONUMENTS … was initiated in 2010 by artist Kristina Leko as a further development of her “Missing Monuments” project commissioned by the Institute Art in Public Space Styria in 2006, with the wish to tackle the obvious underrepresentation of migrant and working-class perspectives in the local public discourse. Located in the Annenviertel neighborhood, the Rotor Center for Contemporary Art was the institutional carrier and promotor or the project as well as a venue for diverse project activities. Although conceived and realized as a temporary 2-year intervention, six out of eight project locations are still in function while one of them has been included in a mainstream tourist city tour for several years. Based on the interest of different parties (schools, citizens’ groups, organizations) Rotor Center files renewal for project permit every 2 years; Rotor also offers guided tours on the project sites.
In 2011 two historians, Dr. Leo Kühberger and Joachim Heinzel, were commissioned to carry out a historical research in Annenviertel, a working class vibrant migrant area of Graz, and to research and describe 18 locations of particular relevance to the labor movement history as well as to the history of migrations. One example is the Pastergasse, a street where a community of Italian migrants (construction workers) dwelled in the 16th century, while to be found on the spot today is a city-owned social housing project mostly populated by people with migrant background. Another example is the Idlhofgasse 36, which was the headquarters of the first anarchist organization in Styria back in the 1920s. The very same rooms have been home to the Kurdistan Information Centre since 2003.
On a weekend in October 2011 this historical research was presented in the form of a two-day sightseeing walk to a group of students of the Institute for Cultural Anthropology, Karl Franzens University in Graz. The event was part of the seminar “No History – No Monuments, visual ethnography and representational critique in art and cultural anthropology”, a collaborative university seminar by cultural anthropologist Dr. Judith Laister and artist Kristina Leko. Whereas Laister gave theoretical input, Leko undertook field research with students, and mediated her knowledge and skills related to biographical field research. (Since 1999 Leko has been artistically involved in biographical research in different social contexts.) Conversely, the research done within the seminar was transformed into an artistic project in public space.
Working in small groups and individually, the students researched and edited the biographies of people with migrant backgrounds who live or work at the historical sites mentioned above. One of the goals of the seminar “No History – No Monuments” was to produce encounters and exchanges between the students and the residents of the neighborhood. The other goal was to empower the project participants, migrant residents, by involving them in a cultural project with considerable visibility in public space. Nineteen students took part in the project, and over twenty biographical texts were written. In the next phase, a choice of historical and biographical texts created in the project was made. These texts were then shortened and transformed into text-based artworks. Each text was created through the participation and involvement of several individuals, where all the involved parties edited the text: individual field researchers, sometimes several researchers for one biography, their interview partners - people whose biographies were the subject of interest and research, several members of project team, historians involved in the project.
The final result of the project NO MONUMENTS FOR LABOUR AND IMMIGRATION counted eight interventions in public space. At each location, two text panels designed as school blackboards appear applied on the building facades. At each location, one text tells a story from the history of the Austrian labor movement while the other narrates biographies of the migrant citizens related to the location. The audience is invited to correlate the two texts, the two panels. The project as a whole is a statement about relationship of migration/s to the labor movement and its history.
The opening of the project took the form of a guided tour and a performative May Day rally, a happening with megaphones and banners, on May 1st, 2013. The members of the audience took part by reading laud selected text-passages at different sites during the tour. Over 200 people participated.
Conceptualized to be a socially and politically functional artwork, this project had a mediation program brought along the interventions in public space. In the period 2013 until 2015 the Rotor Centre for Contemporary Art offered regular guided tours through the project and the neighborhood in order to spread knowledge about the local history of labor and migration, and to promote the main thought of the project, that migration indeed has always been part of the Austrian labor history. A guided tour involving project sites is still available at Rotor upon request.
Read More
NO MONUMENTS … was initiated in 2010 by artist Kristina Leko as a further development of her “Missing Monuments” project commissioned by the Institute Art in Public Space Styria in 2006, with the wish to tackle the obvious underrepresentation of migrant and working-class perspectives in the local public discourse. Located in the Annenviertel neighborhood, the Rotor Center for Contemporary Art was the institutional carrier and promotor or the project as well as a venue for diverse project activities. Although conceived and realized as a temporary 2-year intervention, six out of eight project locations are still in function while one of them has been included in a mainstream tourist city tour for several years. Based on the interest of different parties (schools, citizens’ groups, organizations) Rotor Center files renewal for project permit every 2 years; Rotor also offers guided tours on the project sites.
In 2011 two historians, Dr. Leo Kühberger and Joachim Heinzel, were commissioned to carry out a historical research in Annenviertel, a working class vibrant migrant area of Graz, and to research and describe 18 locations of particular relevance to the labor movement history as well as to the history of migrations. One example is the Pastergasse, a street where a community of Italian migrants (construction workers) dwelled in the 16th century, while to be found on the spot today is a city-owned social housing project mostly populated by people with migrant background. Another example is the Idlhofgasse 36, which was the headquarters of the first anarchist organization in Styria back in the 1920s. The very same rooms have been home to the Kurdistan Information Centre since 2003.
On a weekend in October 2011 this historical research was presented in the form of a two-day sightseeing walk to a group of students of the Institute for Cultural Anthropology, Karl Franzens University in Graz. The event was part of the seminar “No History – No Monuments, visual ethnography and representational critique in art and cultural anthropology”, a collaborative university seminar by cultural anthropologist Dr. Judith Laister and artist Kristina Leko. Whereas Laister gave theoretical input, Leko undertook field research with students, and mediated her knowledge and skills related to biographical field research. (Since 1999 Leko has been artistically involved in biographical research in different social contexts.) Conversely, the research done within the seminar was transformed into an artistic project in public space.
Working in small groups and individually, the students researched and edited the biographies of people with migrant backgrounds who live or work at the historical sites mentioned above. One of the goals of the seminar “No History – No Monuments” was to produce encounters and exchanges between the students and the residents of the neighborhood. The other goal was to empower the project participants, migrant residents, by involving them in a cultural project with considerable visibility in public space. Nineteen students took part in the project, and over twenty biographical texts were written. In the next phase, a choice of historical and biographical texts created in the project was made. These texts were then shortened and transformed into text-based artworks. Each text was created through the participation and involvement of several individuals, where all the involved parties edited the text: individual field researchers, sometimes several researchers for one biography, their interview partners - people whose biographies were the subject of interest and research, several members of project team, historians involved in the project.
The final result of the project NO MONUMENTS FOR LABOUR AND IMMIGRATION counted eight interventions in public space. At each location, two text panels designed as school blackboards appear applied on the building facades. At each location, one text tells a story from the history of the Austrian labor movement while the other narrates biographies of the migrant citizens related to the location. The audience is invited to correlate the two texts, the two panels. The project as a whole is a statement about relationship of migration/s to the labor movement and its history.
The opening of the project took the form of a guided tour and a performative May Day rally, a happening with megaphones and banners, on May 1st, 2013. The members of the audience took part by reading laud selected text-passages at different sites during the tour. Over 200 people participated.
Conceptualized to be a socially and politically functional artwork, this project had a mediation program brought along the interventions in public space. In the period 2013 until 2015 the Rotor Centre for Contemporary Art offered regular guided tours through the project and the neighborhood in order to spread knowledge about the local history of labor and migration, and to promote the main thought of the project, that migration indeed has always been part of the Austrian labor history. A guided tour involving project sites is still available at Rotor upon request.
RELATED
Rotor Centre for Contemporary Art NO MONUMENTS @ Rotor
CREDITS
The No Monuments for Labor and Immigration project was commissioned by the Institute Art in Public Space Styria and produced by the Rotor Centre for Contemporary Art.
Initial idea, artist: Kristina Leko. Curated and produced by Rotor: Margarethe Makovec, Anton Lederer.Production team by Rotor: Doris Psenicnik, Christina Lessiak, Anna Kamyshan, Wolfgang Oeggl Scientific researcher for cultural anthropology: Dr. Judith Laister. Historical research: Joachim Hainzl, Leo Kühberger
Field research, students of European Ethnology and the residents of the Annenviertel neighborhood: Yemi Adesuyi Ojumo, Evelyn Ark, Ayten G., Yakut Benan, Martin Breuss, Bianca Flecker, Tanja Fuchs, Peter Lukas, Oktavian Gillmayr, Claudia Gross, Michael Jabbour, Pinar K., Robin Paul Klengel, Emir Kuljuh, Ali Kurt, Claudia Leitinger, Mao Liyi, Katja Fischer, Aline Marques, Elisabeth Matlschweiger, Fatima Maria N., Anna Orgler, Piso O., Stefan Postl, Kurt Pöschl, Andrea Pöschl, Kennedy P., Angela Prassl, Hildegard Ruhdorfer, Barbara Schmid, Mustafa Seyhan, Kadir Smailović, Heide Spitzer, Nora Kim Steinbach, Kristina Stocker, Daniela Stradner, Kurosch U., Karoline Walter, Katrin Wankhammer, Michael Windisch. Cooperation partners: Institut für Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Steiermark, Stadtbaudirektion - Stadtteilmanagement Annenviertel, Institut für Volkskunde und Kulturanthropologie der Universität Graz, Kurdistan Informationszentrum. Additional support: Steirische Gesellschaft für Kulturpolitik; RONDO - KünstlerInnenateliers des Landes Steiermark; Ministry of Culture, Republic of Croatia; Office of Cultural Affairs of the City of Zagreb. Photo credits: J.J. Kucek (May Day Happening), Kristina Leko (intervention sites).
GENRE&FORMATS
Project: research; intervention in public space; public art project; community art project; oral history; participatory-documentary art project; project with specific social groups; social plastic. Artwork/s and artifacts: city tours; field-research workshops; encounters; university seminar; exhibition; texts; text-panels installed in public space – parcour. Timeframe: process; student seminar/social sculpture: 2,5 years; intervention in public space: since 2013. Number and profile of participants: approx. 40; university students; persons with migrant background of different age and diverse profiles; cultural workers of diverse profiles.
PUBLIC SPACE
BRING SOME CHAIRS
2019
GRENZE/GRENS
2014-2023
MLADEZ VEDE BRNO
REVISITED 1949-2013
2013
NO MONUMENTS FOR
LABOR AND IMMIGRATION
2013
KATTENBURG TRIUMPHAL
ARCH
2010
THE BERBERS
2010
THE WAY PEOPLE LIVE
2010, 2008
MISSING MONUMENTS
2007
MONUMENTS FOR THE
GOOD PEOPLE OF
VOLKERTVIERTEL
2006
CONSTITUTIONAL
OVERHAUL BUREAU
2004
CHEESE AND CREAM
2002–2013
SARAJEVO
INTERNATIONAL
2001
MADONNA TO FISH
2001
VEDUTA
1998
FLOWERS
1997
THREE DAYS 1997
VISUALLY BASED
PERCEPTION TRAINING
1995-1997
SPEAKER SYSTEM
1994
EXHIBITIONS &COMMUNITY
THE WAY PEOPLE LIVE –
REPORTS ON
DISENGAGEMENT
2016
OUR DEAR MARICA
REVISITED
2014
ČEZNJA -
BORN LONGING
2012
ORIENTAL RUGS/
FRIENDSHIP
2012
ALL ABOUT TITO
2012-2013
GEWALT.FREI
2011
A HAPPY HOUSE
OF JUSTICE AND LOVE
2009
SRETNO!
2008
SHORT HISTORY
OF MINING
2008
PROOF No. 4:
EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST
2006
AMERIKA
2005
VISMIJN
2004
ON MILK AND PEOPLE
2003
VISIT
2002
EXCHANGING
BIOGRAPHIES
2000
VIDEO & AUDIO WORKS
HISTORY OF A CAKE
1999
LES NOUVELLES DE
ZAGREB/ZAGREB
PROSE AND NEWS
1999/2000
GDANSK DOLNE
MIASTO
2000
ME,JADZIA
2000
HER 25802nd DAY
2000
MLIJEKO/MILK
2000
SARAJEVO
INTERNATIONAL
2001
BOUGHT IN GRAZ
2001
ON MILK AND PEOPLE
2001/02
MLIJEKO/MILCH
2002
ZAGREB MILKMAIDS
ON YOUR
RIGHT-HAND-SIDE
2002/03
CHEESE AND CREAM
2002/03
VIVE LE FROMAGE
OU LAIT CRU!
2003/05
VISMIJN
2004
ADDRESSING THE
AMERICANS
2004/05
AMERIKA(5)
2003/05
AMERIKA
2003/05
NO SUBJECT
(A CONVERSATION
WITH WORKING
PEOPLE)
2004/05
BEWEISS NR. 4,
DOKUMENTATION
2007
SNORING IN THE USA
2008
BILO JEDNOM,
ES WAR EINMAL
2008
EIN GLÜCKLICHES
HEIM DER
GERECHTIGKEIT
UND LIEBE
2009
FAWZIA SOLL
LESEN LERNEN
2009
WALTER KÜNAS,
DER BLINDER
FOTOGRAF
2009
BLUMENHOF
2009
MARIENHAUS
2009-12
THE WAY PEOPLE
LIVE/PERFORMANCE
2010
REHEARSAL -
THE SMITHSONS
2011
KEINE GEWALT,
KEINE MOBBING
2011
ZAPPEN, EIN
GEWÖHNLICHER
SAMSTAGABEND
(22.10.2011)
2011
X-GAMES
KÖLN MÜLHEIM
2011
NASA DRAGA MARICA
2014
THE WAY PEOPLE LIVE –
REPORTS ON STILLSTAND
2016
DOCUMENTARY FILMS
LUME CARA ĂJ ĂM
NJENČIM - IN
POSTPRODUCTION
RELEASE 1-2026
CHEESE AND CREAM
40 MIN
FACTUM, 2013
THE GROUP OF SIX
ARTISTS
90 MIN
HRT, 2002
IVAN LADISLAV
GALETA
47 MIN
HRT, 2000
VLADIMIR DODIG
TROKUT
48 MIN
HRT, 1999
ALEKSANDAR SRNEC
48 MIN
HRT, 1999