Events
Jonas Staal: Propaganda Station
01/03/ 2024 – 31/05/ 2024
Propaganda Station is a new complex installation and live program by Dutch artist Jonas Stahl, which explores the relationship of art and culture to dominant forms of contemporary propaganda, as well as the tools and possibilities of forms of (counter)propaganda emerging from emancipatory grassroots and liberation movements.
The project is organized by the association Faculty of Untaught Things – FRU in cooperation with the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje within the framework of the international project “Islands of Kinship: A Collective Handbook for Sustainable and Inclusive Art Institutions”.
Propaganda Station aims to make visible the various contemporary propagandas that actively shape our world today. The central installation is designed as a reverse panopticon: instead of monitoring the visitor, it provides the viewer with a position of counter-surveillance over the work of propagandists who influence our daily lives.
The term “station” in Propaganda Station can be understood in several ways. The exhibition functions as a place where different models of propaganda such as ultranationalist propaganda, alt-right propaganda, liberal propaganda, financial propaganda, empire propaganda, climate propaganda and geological propaganda are “stationed”. It is based on more than a decade of artistic research conducted by Jonas Stahl on propaganda and counter-propaganda.
At the center of the installation is a "school of propaganda", where various artists, academics, journalists, theorists, advocates, and activists hold lectures, workshops, and trainings in the field of propaganda analysis and (counter)propaganda action.
The Skopje Propaganda School, entitled "Anti-Inquisition Propaganda: From Skopje 2014 to Skopje – European Capital of Culture 2028", intends to create a temporary discursive platform that will deconstruct the complexity of the anti-inquisition propaganda depicted in the Skopje 2014 project. Through presentations by several theorists, activists, artists and journalists from North Macedonia, this program will offer an interventionist contribution to the legal, media, semiotic, social and artistic aspects of the project erected in the "captive state" and will attempt to rethink its future existence, confronting the preparations and production of the capital project Skopje – European Capital of Culture 2028.
More information about this school: www.akto-fru.org
Project team: Jonas Stahl (artist); Ivana Vaseva (curator); Filip Jovanovski (associate of the School of Propaganda, Faculty of Untaught Things – FRU); Nadine Gauder (coordinator of Studio Jonas Stahl); Ivana Samandova, Dimitar Milev, Tamara Džerkov (production Faculty of Untaught Things – FRU, Skopje); Iliana Petrushevska (graphic design – poster, Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje); Paul Kipers (architect); Remko van Bladel (graphic design); Ruben Hamelink (camera and video editing); Ivana Samandova (title); Nevenka Nikolić (translation and proofreading).
Во партнерство со: Здружение Јиндрих Чалупецки, Прага (Карина Котова) и Музеј на современата уметност Загреб (Зденка Бадовинац).
Supported by: Mondrian Fund, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; co-financed by the European Union within the framework of the international project "Islands of Kinship: A Collective Handbook for Sustainable and Inclusive Arts Institutions".
