18.00 – 19.30
Exhibition tour with Lena Fließbach, curator and author, along with Isabelle Heske, Jeanna Kolesova, Laura Nitsch, Eglė Otto and Cora Wöllenstein.
In German.

20.30 – 22.00
Lecture-performance by Jeanna Kolesova (Goldrausch 2024) and Elena Ishchenko, curator and researcher.
In English.

What political narratives are generated through the formation of collective memory? Starting from a research-based practice, Jeanna Kolesova and Elena Ishchenko examine the consequences of Russia’s colonial and imperial policies in their performance lecture "When the past becomes a weapon, the future disappears." They explore how a repressive politics of memory contributes to demonstrating state sovereignty and justifying ongoing expansion and wars.

In their performative video lecture, Kolesova uses the experience and memory of their grandmother about the Second World War. They show how the individual memory that holds the weight of war within it, has been erased by the bravado of victory. Kolesova uses children’s games of burying and excavating memory rituals and digital changes of soviet monuments to deconstruct memory manipulations.

In her lecture, Elena Ischenko will elaborate on how monuments are widely used by both the USSR and contemporary Russia as a tool to construct national and cultural memory. Ubiquitous Second World War memorials, which the Russian state constructs with renewed vigor following the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine, help turn the idea of war into a ‘stable reference.’