IN THE COMFORT OF “THE MAGICAL CLOSET”: ARTS-SPACES AS PLACES OF POST-SOVIET QUEER LIFE

Masha Godovannaya, Ruthia Jenrbekova, Maria Neufeld, Katharina Wiedlack

Within post-soviet spaces queer visibility is needed to create some form of recognition and build communities, yet the same visibility can create unwanted attention and lead to further oppression (Nemtsova 2017, Rettman 2015, Taylor 2014, Kreeger 2013). Activist spaces are increasingly threatened through new laws, social and/or political pressure. Different than activism, artistic spaces, however, still seem to provide relatively safe spaces to enjoy queer lives and community. While art, theater and performance seem to be the spaces where queer life enjoys itself within the broader post-Soviet spheres, the existing scientific research on post-Soviet queer lives seems to ignore them completely. In our discussion panel, we will discuss how arts spaces are or can become places, where post-Soviet queer lives exist and enjoy themselves despite oppressive social and political structures. On examples, we will discuss how queer community building can happen under state imposed homophobia and social silencing, lack of resources and recognition. We will address Western scientific and activist paradigms as one reason, why queer research and activism is unable to account for the social realities of post-Soviet countries. We will bring in perspectives outside Western perception on modernity and progress. Our critical stance towards the Western visibility paradigm is strongly influenced by philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant’s demand for “the right to opacity for everyone” (1997). For Glissant, the right to opacity was “an ethical stance against imperial conquest and domination” (Blas 2016, 149). Art-based research, such as Zach Blas’ (2016), Anna T.’s (2014), or Pauline Boudry’s and Renate Lorenz’s (2014, 2017) positions opacity as a queer issue in times of seemingly universal surveillance and public control, homo-tolerance or homonationalism in some parts of the world as well as increasing homophobia in others. The approach to opacity as a way to protect the local community and challenge the Western perspective on post-socialist lives can be found in art-agendas of such organizations as queer ANarchive, Croatia, or Queer Archive Institute, Poland. We discuss how arts-based method and arts spaces can be the sources to create queer knowledge. We aim to explore and register queer life-traces within the post-Soviet space, while at the same time not violating the right to opacity.

Masha Godovannaya, PhD candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, Art Theory and Cultural Studies, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Her research interests are: Arts-based Research with focus on visual Techniques and Performance; Film; Experimental Cinema; Gender; Sociology of Parenthood; Queer Theory

Ruthia Jenrbekova, PhD candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, Art Theory and Cultural Studies, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna

Masha Neufeld is a PhD candidate at the Dresden University of Technology, Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy and a Writer in Residence at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University

Katharina Wiedlack is queer researcher and activist, currently working as FWF-Fellow at the Department of English and American Studies, University of Vienna. Her research interests are American, Gender, Queer and Disability, as well as Post-Soviet Studies