Powder keg 2.0 was formed in response to the myriad of issues and causes which lie behind a Europe that is polarised along historical and ideological lines. A fundamental aim and mission of ours is to advocate for creatives who are often faced with ambivalence and prejudices in their lives and chosen vocations, hoping to provide a platform which provides an equal footing with counterparts who are less disadvantaged and marginalised by virtue of their circumstances.
Our balkan heritage and identity grants us with a special perspective coming from a certain kind of “cultural no-man's land of otherness”. We regularly seem to stumble upon something arising from a shrouded and typecast art map; the transitional experience of the south east can offer insights into fundamental issues of politicised ideology and tangled identity.
Speaking of the Balkans, we are not dealing simply with actual geography, but with a paramount western Eurocentric mapping which projects onto real landscapes and people. The shadowy “other”, overlooked and often misunderstood ideological antagonisms. If we think of Europe as a family, the Balkan region and eastern fronts appear as a tool used by the progress-loving Europe in the event of self-essentialization, and this is something that extends to the creative industry. We see subjects and practices sprouting from troubled psychosynthesis which are complex enough to surpass the ‘telescopic philanthropy’, and reveal scenarios disturbing enough to break this enticing as well as marketable façade into pieces.
This truth comes to light in the cases of artistic immigration towards a brighter future or when artists born from migrants attempt to carve a career in various western hubs and their existing cliques.
Artists coming from developing countries have always faced various kinds of socioeconomic instabilities and recession, political upheavals and antagonism between classes. Artists like those from the Balkan peninsula and other areas with similar stories, have been born into phenomena that are now also becoming more and more prominent in “west”. It is true everyone’s experience has become leveled because of a global conservative turn and successive economic crises. Particularly with respect to the creative sectors, art education and cultural institutions have been stretched thin by years of austerity - actually leading to a further lack of diversity in these big centres. The effect of this adds to the pre-existing structural discriminations people from cultures and backgrounds that are “different” routinely face, and the narrowing down of thematic principles; feeling obliged to match the requirements of the traditional imperialist art salons, who’s underlying premise is to radiate civilisation via neo-moralised posturing and topics in the new wave of “discourse as trend”.
It basically all seems to lead to a veiled competition of who of us is the more oppressed, and the oppressors finding new ways to restructure elements and reorganise the socially acceptable ways subsets of people should interact.
The Balkan diaspora experience is a struggle with understanding one’s own identity, and reconciling that identity whilst navigating social structures that you are seemingly able to fit into, but feel a fundamental lack of acceptance.
“Blending in” can become an erasure of your cultural identity. That identity is a product of a rich cultural history, a product of centuries’ worth of exchange and assimilation of influences from the East, Africa, Europe, internal and external political and social upheavals, wars and bloody conflicts (and so on)…
Fragility of western nepotism leads to a certain type of gatekeeping, inserted subversively into social spaces and creative output. A lack of understanding the history behind cultural signifiers that are part of the heritage of many ethnic peoples, are identified as belonging to only “one”, not many. This is generalising, a form of social sifting, and basically insulting to everyone involved. Calling out becomes a new form of imperialism, one that’s accepted by mainstream causes and celebrated as inclusive, but in reality it’s a new type of colonising, and such social justice crusades somehow ensure the same western ideological hierarchies are maintained, consolidated even, under the guise of inclusivity.
Artists having seen and experienced the effects of social fragmentation, economic uncertainty and rapid cultural and political change, are able to contribute to a universal understanding of identity pain, and this is a strong case for art facilitating solidarity around collective trauma - something that is more pertinent now than ever.