Promotion of the book "MAKEDONIUM: Dramaturgy of the Unfinished"
Book Promotion | Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanoska | Makedonium: Dramaturgy of the Unfinished | MKC, Skopje | December 22, 2021
In the Youth Cultural Center - Skopje, a promotion of the book "MAKEDONIUM: Dramaturgy of the Unfinished" - the latest joint research work of Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanoska happened.
The book "MAKEDONIUM: Dramaturgy of the Unfinished" contains new author's material by the artists Ivanoska and Calovski, inspired by the research of the archival documentation from the process of making the memorial complex "Makedonium" (later renamed to "Ilinden") by the authors Jordan and Iskra Grabuloski, and given by the family to the State Archives in Skopje.
In this book, the specific archival materials that the authors encounter for the first time in 2017 represent a substitute for real and living memory open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting. The book is the first (or initial) act of materializing the research and consists of two artistic concepts, archival material and republishing of several texts by other authors, who wrote about the monument in different time periods and from different aspects.
The dramaturgical text "If there is a story" by Ivanoska is elaborated in seven (7) scenes. It interprets part of the minutes and documentation from the working meetings of the bodies composed of eminent persons and experts, and created around the construction and maintenance of the monument. Through them, one can perceive the imposed social-political authority against the author's, aesthetic and abstract thinking and shaping of things. Through the series of documented compromises, deviations and frustrations, the text reveals to us the complex position of Jordan, and especially of Iskra Grabuloski, in relation to other collaborators and social authorities.
The digital spatial installation "Restrained Space (Affected by Your Actions)" by Calovski originates above all from the "forgotten" basement space of the so-called "projection hall", located under the main dome to which a spiral staircase should have led, and in whose place today the "Eternal Fire" is located. Chalovski's sculptural constellation of forms illustrates a space/scene, which corresponds to Ivanoska's performative-dramaturgical text.
In this publication, a selection of texts by Antoanela Petkovska, Sonja Abadzieva Dimitrova, Bojan Ivanov and Keith Bran, which were written in different time periods and refer to the social, aesthetic-artistic and historical importance of the monument, have been republished.
The book is part of the study, discursive, research-performance and publishing program of the "Press to Exit Project Space" for 2020. The author of the introductory text is Jovanka Popova, the design is by Neda Firfova, and the translation and proofreading are by Ana Vasileva and Gjoko Zdraveski. The promotion was led by Vladimir Janchevski, curator and art historian.
The research and publication are supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia, the Foundation for Arts Initiatives from New York, the i-Portunus mobility program, and the "Fuschbau" festival for contemporary art from Hannover, Germany.
*Thanks to Lira Grabul, Frosina Gjorchevska and the State Archives of the Republic of North Macedonia for their trust and cooperation during the research.
The event is organized in compliance with the current covid-protocols.
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