P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute presents The Renaming Machine

The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute -- Ljubljana is pleased to announce the launch of the project The Renaming Machine with the opening of the exhibition on June 12, at the Jakopic Gallery in Ljubljana, to be followed by one-day conference.

These events announce the forthcoming series of curated exhibitions and conferences, individual research based art projects, public discussions and workshops that until mid 2009 will be organised in Skopje, Prishtina, Zagreb and Ljubljana under the umbrella project The Renaming Machine.

The project is realised in the framework of the Patterns – the newly launched Este Bank's project, in a partnership between the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute – Ljubljana, Peace Institute -- Ljubljana, press to exit project space – Skopje and Stacion – Prishtina.

The project The Renaming Machine looks at the complex entanglements involved in the political and cultural processes of renaming. Its main concept reflects the crucial need to question the way these processes have influenced the construction and destabilisation of the memory of national, cultural and personal identities in the former Yugoslavia and South-Eastern Europe over the past two decades. The project will examine various artistic and cultural phenomena associated with the notions of “renaming” and “branding,” in order to determine what the extent to which renaming affects visual culture and shapes the cultural identities and cultural politics of the region.

The Renaming Machine underscores the arbitrary and contingent nature of names, but at the same time with these general theoretical implications that renaming issue entails it asks questions about the clandestine ideological patterns of “desiring renaming machine” at work behind the dominant social machines that change toponyms and personal names. The “renaming machine” has for example its implications within gender politics by means of the patriarchal marriage contract that has traditionally dictated that a woman assumes her husband’s family name thus overwriting her maiden identity.

As a region that has been overburdened with many changes in its state borders, the Balkans possess a history that abounds with the politics of renaming. These changes of names of institutions, people(s), languages, toponyms, even states, were usually seen as a first step in the appropriation or erasure of national, cultural, and personal identities, as well as a means for ensuring the long-term political interests and domination of a territory.

During the first edition of The Renaming Machine twenty different artists, art groups, theorists, activists or visual culture phenomena concerned with renaming are going to be presented. In the course of the project's future editions additional research based art projects will be commissioned and other artists and theorists will be invited to present projects engaged with various aspects of renaming.

For more information visit www.zavod-parasite.si

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