Shoshanna Utchenik - Becoming Slovenian / Postati Slovenka

Live Online Conversation with artist Shoshanna Utchenik and curator Mojca Grmek at http://tinychat.com/postatislovenka

About the artist
Interdisciplinary visual artist Shoshanna Utchenik (1978) lives and works in the USA and Slovenia. She graduated with a BFA from the sculpture department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and did her MFA in art theory and praxis at Northwestern University in Evanston.
In her work the artist examines individual characteristics to explore universal problems that prevent people from connecting to each other, and seeks ways to overcome them. In her most recent works, which are executed under the umbrella Interstate Arts, Utchenik uses means of performance and artistic interventions to stage a creative process amidst everyday life – as an alternative to the passiveness and comfort-seeking encouraged by the consumer society.

About the project
In both playful and poetical manner the project Becoming Slovenian / Postati Slovenka transforms the artist´s battles with comprehending, exploring and conquering the Slovene language and culture into an interactive art piece. The first installment of the project was presented at Gallery Kapsula in Ljubljana 2010, but for the CAC Bukovje presentation the artist is attempting to overcome another obstacle between people – physical distance – and hence the event will not be limited to a certain location but take place within a forum on the Internet.
The project is shaped as a dialogue between the artist and the audience. The conversation revolves around the role of citizenship and culture in the construction of one’s personal identity, and in this aspect about the challenges (and rewards) of mutual understanding. As a starting point, the artist is asking her audience for tips on how to become “Slovene”: “What do I have to do to become Slovenian?” She is asking for help in form of instructive guidelines, recommended types of food, recipes, poems, texts etc that the visitors of the forum can donate to the project electronically. Utchenik will sum the visitors´ contributions, her own responses to them (in form of drawings, texts, photographs etc.) and further documentation of the project into a literary-visual book that will function as a poetic ethnographical work.

http://tinychat.com/postatislovenka, 25th Aug, 3pm - 6 pm, 2012