Biološki bandalir: vmesna panika
Originalni naslov: Biohazard Bandolier: In-between Panic
Avtor_ica: Jatun Risba
Kdaj: 14. 11 . 2025
Kje: Pixxelpoint Simpozij, Xcenter, Nova Gorica
Op. u.: 14. 11. bi se moral v okviru festivala Pixxelpoint zgoditi performans umetnice Jatun Risba, vendar so dogodek odpovedali. Po pridobljenih informacijah o razlogu odpovedi dogodka se je zgodila cenzura, predvsem se je zataknilo pri goloti. Kljub odpovedi performansa pa niso umetnici odpovedali udeležbe na simpoziju. Svoj čas, ki je bil namenjen predavanju, je izkoristila, da predstavi gverila performans, zamišljen le nekaj dni pred dogodkom kot odgovor na cenzuro. Ker je bilo besedilo performansa v obliki predavanja izredno pomenljivo in se dotika več tem, povezanih z današnjo kulturno sceno, ga objavljamo v celoti. Besedilo puščamo v izvirniku, angleščini. Pustili smo tudi določene stilske odločitve v tekstu.
:::::::Disclaimer:::::::
THIS PERFORMANCE LECTURE IS NOT AN ACCUSATION TOWARD THE CURATORIAL TEAM OF THE PIXXELPOINT 2025 FESTIVAL. The critique presented in the lecture addresses the broader current state of art and culture, drawing upon a painful lived experience of a cancellation caused by an intervention from the very institution that should have hosted my work.
I want to tell you a story – one that emerges from my personal experience and reflections on the role of art and the artist in society, particularly in times when words and concepts seem to have lost much of their original meaning and a profound recalibration of perception and understanding is necessary. I begin with what may appear to be a detour, though it is, in fact, a necessary point of departure. Mircea Eliade, in his seminal studies on shamanism, emphasises that shamans operate within specific social and cosmological frameworks that define, legitimise, and sustain their roles as healers and mediators between the human and the more-than-human realms (Eliade 1951). Their authority is not self-generated; it is socially conferred and ritually reaffirmed through the religious, economic, and political structures of their communities. As Eliade observes, the shaman functions as a medium: a liminal figure whose efficacy depends upon collective recognition, rather than as an autonomous individual. The Medium is the Massage. The Medium is the Message. In a Messy, Mass Age …
This framework can be applied to the figure of the contemporary artist, especially within post-religious societies, where art remains one of the few domains in which non-mechanistic, experimental and intuitive ways of knowing and being-in-the-world can still be expressed and shared. The latter notion, drawn from Martin Heidegger’s ontology of Dasein in Being and Time (1927), describes human existence as an inherently situated and relational condition – an ongoing negotiation between self, others, and the world. Within this perspective, the artist occupies a role akin to that of the shaman: as mediator between visible and invisible realities, between what is lived and what can or cannot be articulated with words alone.
Yet in a society that has largely ceased to recognise the transformative or paradigm shifting potential of art, the space for meaningful artistic practice has become severely constrained. The artist’s capacity for genuine mediation, critique, and renewal – of relational, mental, and organisational patterns within a community – is limited, as is the freedom and transformative power that art both conveys and sustains.
It is therefore unsurprising that phenomena such as cancel culture seek to erase specific artists and artworks from both the contemporary art milieu and the processes of historicisation – that is, the ways in which art is remembered, documented, and incorporated into the fortress of Art History. These practices have become increasingly pervasive. They unfold alongside the growing commodification of art and life, and in parallel with the resurgence of conservatism, sexism, ableism, racism, and fascism. Together, these forces expose the sociopolitical and economic pressures that determine which artists and works are seen, valued, and preserved.
Everyone who participates in the contemporary art world knows how it is governed by clientelism and closed networks, where access and recognition are granted not by merit but by knowing the right people, paying lip service, and demonstrating compliance with the status quo, doing art for the sake of art. Artists who resist these unspoken codes – whose work or presence is unstable, fluid, or challenging – are often marginalised, regardless of the urgency or significance of their contributions to the field of art. In this system, visibility and validation depend less on the art itself and more on one’s ability to navigate a performative, corrupted social economy and comply to its agenda.
This dynamic is particularly evident in the Slovene art scene – an example par excellence of how networks of privilege and insider recognition shape opportunities and sustain institutionalised hierarchies. Yet, there is nothing uniquely Slovene about this; it’s merely a matter of scale. The smaller the country, the fewer circles an open-minded mouse can run before being cast out. The prompt towards marginalisation, even exile, becomes super efficient here – so spot-on it’s almost elegant, especially when one lives at the margins of a country’s map and wears an intersectional identity.
Who, then, is left behind? Those who inhabit the in-between spaces—artists who resist easy categorisation, whose identities and artistic genres are contaminated, porous, and whose movements remain unpredictable. These are the practitioners of urgent art, whose voices challenge systems of control, violence, and silencing. Memento mori.
Why is it important to continue participating in art, to keep giving form and voice to other, alternative narratives – especially those rooted in ambiguity, hybridity, and autofiction? Paraphrasing the Asian American poet and writer Ocean Vuong (Fragoso 2025), such autobiographical practices are not acts of self-absorption or self-indulgence, as gatekeepers often claim when dismissing their value. I know this response well – I’ve heard it more than once from gallery owners and curators unmoved by any art that doesn’t guarantee a easy or proven commercial return.
On the contrary, such artworks, projects, and stories are profoundly political gestures – testaments of survival that transmit methods, tactics, and trans-generational wisdom to present and future companions. They say: “Look what I, what we, have endured and surpassed. I am not special. If I made it, you can make it too.” Through this act of witnessing, they reposition power within society, launching an ethical question into the world: how do we continue to live, love, and create despite everything that seeks to silence us?
But I was never trying to make art – I am trying to break free, and to bring everyone else into this sacred space of love along with me.
References:
Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy. Princeton University Press.
Fragoso, Sam. 2025. Writer Ocean Voung’s Vision of the Future. Episode 417. Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. June 1. https://talkeasypod.com/ocean-vuong-2025/.
Glissant, Edouard. 1997. Poetics of relation. University of Michigan Press.
Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and time. Harper & Row. Hauser, Jens. 2008. Sk-interfaces: Exploding borders Creating Membranes in Art, Technology and Society. Liverpool: FACT.
McLuhan, Marshall. 1967. The medium is the massage: An inventory of effects. Bantam Books.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
It’s the third time my work has been cancelled.
I have had enough.
And I am not alone.
Art colleagues — in Berlin, UK, in Slovakia, in Czechia, in Hungary, in Slovenia, across our fragile continent and beyond — are being silenced, censored, condemned, economically wiped out by massive cuts to arts funding, and therefore to artists themselves.
This is not an accident.
It is the result of a premeditated design — one carefully tailored to strike those already living at the margins, surviving on minimum wages, creating from a calling and a vow that doesn’t let us rest.
This is not just about us.
It’s about what Art stands for.
Art is not decoration.
Art is not strategic beautification.
Art is revelation.
It takes a life of sacrifice, of renunciations, of devoted study:::::::a lifetime of building skill, craft, and courage:::::::to be-come an artist.
And it takes only a flash of ignorance, of arrogance, of narcissism to erase that work, and with it, the life that carries it.
Let us raise the bar of Art again.
Lift it back to where it belongs:::::::to the numinous, the sacred, the infinite.
To what cannot be reduced to code, nor contained in binaries.
Let us protect Art. Not as a luxury, but as a force and site of healing, of learning, of growth.
For regenerative change.
For the common good.
For the highest:::::::
:::::::Disclaimer:::::::
THIS PERFORMANCE LECTURE IS NOT AN ACCUSATION TOWARD THE CURATORIAL TEAM OF THE PIXXELPOINT 2025 FESTIVAL. The critique presented in the lecture addresses the broader current state of art and culture, drawing upon a painful lived experience of a cancellation caused by an intervention from the very institution that should have hosted my work.
Uredil: Jernej Čuček Gerbec
