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Overview

A specific focus of Peripheries and Horizons is placed on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) where cultural and political peripheralisation intersects with complex histories of empire, through different practices of socialism and communism, internationalism and nationalism, and transitions towards "democracy" and capitalism. The series also examines how “whiteness” is constructed, negotiated, and destabilised in these contexts, challenging assumptions of a homogeneous European identity.

The series considers coloniality in particular contexts of this region. Invasion, conquest, and oppression can certainly be part of colonial histories, but they are not sufficient conditions, on their own, to define a country as "colonised". Colonialism is also characterised by a specific material relation of extraction between a centre and its colonies—a relation that does not correspond in the same way to the history of these countries. This series challenges the equivalence between the historical conditions of countries in Eastern Europe, and that of colonised countries in the Global South, by embracing and making space for complexity.

These events are part of the “Postcolonial?” Public Programme co-developed by the museum with a circle of experts, practitioners, artists and educators.

Biographies

Karolina Uskakovych is a multidisciplinary filmmaker, designer, and artist whose work explores the intersections of environment, culture, and theory. She holds a Master’s degree in Nonlinear Narrative from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and is currently a PhD Candidate in Geography by Practice at the University of Manchester. Karolina is a member of the Digital Ecologies Research Group and a co-founder of the Ukrainian Environmental Humanities Network, an interdisciplinary space for academics, practitioners, and artists interested in decolonial approaches to environmental research and practice in Ukraine. 

Joanna Warsza is City Curator of Hamburg, editor, writer, and educator whose work champions public art beyond institutional spaces. Her practice explores performativity, activism, the public sphere in post-migrant societies, and Eastern European critical perspectives. She has curated major international projects, including Radical Playgrounds at Gropius Bau (2024), the Polish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), and the Autostrada Biennale in Kosovo. Previously, she directed Public Art Munich, led public programs at Manifesta 10, and curated exhibitions for the Venice and Berlin Biennales. Former director of CuratorLab at Konstfack University, she lives in Hamburg and Berlin.

Zoltán Ginelli is a critical geographer, historian of science, and global historian whose research explores the connections between Eastern Europe and the Global South through the lenses of colonialism, decolonization, race, and the circulation of knowledge. His work examines how ideas, planning models, and geopolitical imaginaries traveled across the socialist, postcolonial, and capitalist worlds during the twentieth century. A former researcher at the University of Exeter, he has contributed to projects on global socialism and postcolonial history. Ginelli is also the founder of the Decolonizing Eastern Europe initiative and has curated exhibitions on Global Eastern Europe and the Global South.

Banner image: Still from El Shatt – A Blueprint for Utopia (2023) courtesy of Ivan Ramljak.