Skopje, 24 September 2024 (MIA) — The international exhibition "No Time to Work. No Time Free of Work," which opened on Sept. 3, will close Tuesday with a book launch for the collaborative "Precarious for Beginners" and "Islands of Kinship: A Collective Manual for Sustainable and Inclusive Art Institutions" at the National Gallery's Mala Stanica at 7 pm.

Edited by Violeta Kachakova and Ivana Vaseva and translated by Nevenka Nikolikj, "Precarious for Beginners" deals with the precarious work and issues independent artists and cultural workers face in an environment of limited resources and cultural subsidies.

"In this environment, individualization and competition are the main parameters of the dominant capitalist mode of production, and both the institutional and the non-institutional sector are submerged and subordinated to this logic," organizers said in a press release.

Independent artists and cultural workers face job insecurity and lack of social protection, the release said, adding that the publication examines their labor rights as well as efforts to improve their working conditions. It also puts them into the broader context of the country's cultural policies, which shape overall working conditions in the non-institutional cultural sector.

The publication "Islands of Kinship: A Collective Handbook for Inclusive and Sustainable Art Institutions" is the result of a two-year collaboration within the platform Islands of Kinship, which connects six European art institutions from Prague, Bratislava, Bitola/Skopje, Cologne, Helsinki, and Riga. 

The project addresses issues of inclusion, kinship and togetherness, democratic exchange, and the ethics, emotions, and practical solutions needed for fair and sustainable institutional operations.

"In this publication, a unique group of curators, artists, and experts involved in their respective organizations as inclusion and sustainability coordinators reflect on social and environmental responsibility in artistic and institutional practice from theoretical, political, and practical perspectives," the release said. 

The publication also features art projects shown at exhibits and events organized as part of the Islands of Kinship program.

The "No Time to Work. No Time Free of Work" exhibit showcases the works of European artists Selma Banich, Lenka Đorojević and Matej Stupica, Haveit collective, Łukasz Hoffmann, Barbora Kleinhamplová, Dorotej Neshovski, Danilo Prnjat, Pavla Sceranková, Jiří Skála, and StonyTellers.

It opened as part of the 19th AKTO Contemporary Arts Festival organized by the Faculty of Things that Can’t Be Learned with the support of the Czech Republic, as part of the Czech National Recovery Plan. mr/