Learning films and learning communities.
Pedagogies of conviviality in Chto Delat’s film, in resonance with Zapatismo

Talk and discussion with members of Chto Delat: Olga Tzaplya Egorova, Nikolay Oleynikov, and Dmitry Vilensky moderated by Alessandra Pomarico, Grounding ~ Seeding exhibition co-curator.
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26 May 2022, 7 – 8:30 pm
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Live-streamed from tranzit.sk’s space and on tranzit.sk’s FB page.

Ever since their visits to Chiapas and their film The New Dead End #17: Summer School of Slow Orientation in Zapatismo, Chto Delat has engaged in artistic research in resonance with the vision, methods and ways of living of this insurgent community, as a way to self-reflect on their own politics, poetics and pedagogies. For Chto Delat, Zapatismo is an example to return to, and a place to learn from and with.

In this session, the group will talk about how Zapatismo brought hope regarding forms of resistance, generative and communal spaces, real democracy, and art devoted to social and ecological justice, reinforcing our political imaginary despite the failures of leftist social movements. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its unbearable atrocities and its dramatic economic and geopolitical consequences make the questions raised in this film more relevant, if not impossible: what can we learn from Zapatismo in moments of despair, hopelessness and catastrophe?

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The New Dead End #17: Summer School of Slow Orientation in Zapatismo, 2017
Slovak subtitled version available in tranzit.sk

In their famous Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, the Zapatistas shared the dream of a Zapatista Embassy ready to settle around the world to connect struggles against neoliberalism. Chto Delat’s learning film emerged from the anticipation of such ambassadors. To prepare for their visit, a group is invited to reflect on Zapatista ideas and to engage in communal living. The film reflects the process of being together, in resonance with the Zapatista way of life, during an intensive summer school in a dacha outside of St Petersburg. How non-Indigenous people from Russia with their political burdens could practice Zapatista principles and possibly change their own lives and society - became the central question in their ‘film as a process’.

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Grounding ~ Seeding is an exhibition project curated by Judit Angel, Alessandra Pomarico, Borbála Soós, Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu

with artworks by: Marwa Arsanios, Chto Delat, Kitti Gosztola & Bence György Pálinkás, Francisco Huichaqueo, Saodat Ismailova, Amanda Piña, Emília Rigová

29.04. – 15.07.2022

Venue: tranzit.sk, Beskydská 12, Bratislava
Open: Tuesday – Friday: 2:30 – 6:30 p.m.