TOK Curators have decided to cancel event. Here is their statement:
The practice of TOK Curators has always included multiple projects aimed at collaborations and dialogue with cultural practitioners from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia and other neighboring countries in the wider European region.
We condemn the invasion of the Russian forces in Ukraine, this war must be stopped! We are against the reproduction of political division, violence and ideological imperialism! We stand in solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues and all the people of Ukraine and all those who protest this war.
As an independent Russian arts institution, we think that it is important more than ever for the arts community to stay in touch to avoid the further escalation of antagonism and hatred. At this moment our hearts are with our Ukrainian friends and colleagues.
The financialisation of real estate and ongoing social stratification make affordable housing one of the most painful topics for city residents around the world. The notion of “home” is no longer associated with feelings of safety and comfort, it is also related to the issues of economic opportunities (or the lack thereof), limited social mobility, maintaining one's emotional health and, during the pandemic, often involuntary loneliness.
For "Get Real!", the curators invited sixteen artists from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the Netherlands, Spain, Latvia and Turkey to explore the nuances of housing policies and complex urban dynamics. The project reflects on housing processes in different societies and under different conditions – capitalist, socialist, neoliberal – and proposes new spatial scenarios, reinventing forms of coexistence and stimulating environmental awareness.
The resulting exhibition took place in 2021 in Saint Petersburg as a outcome of 5th season of TOK's ongoing project "Critical Mass" which has now been turned into a publication, taking the discussion about housing-related matters to a new, often more personal, level.
Copies of the zine will be sold at the event.
The Creative Association of Curators (TOK) is a female curatorial collective co-founded in 2010 by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits in Saint Petersburg as a platform for research projects at the intersection of contemporary art, social sciences, architecture and socially oriented design. TOK's multilayered, durational and cross-disciplinary projects generate new knowledge about the causes and consequences of changing political realities. Often working outside of usual art spaces, TOK infiltrates social structures, bringing their strains and corrupt functions into the public discourse in order to revisit the roles and powers of social institutions and redraft their potential future. Existing at the intersection of historical analysis and the political imaginary, TOK investigates mechanisms of local governance, public space, educational systems and others.
In 2021 TOK curated the main project at the 6th Tallinn Photomonth Biennale with the exhibition “Intensive Places”. Their exhibition "Voicing the Silence" was a winner of the apexart international open call 2020–2021. TOK is the winner of Russian Innovation Art Prize – 2020.