Queering the Eastern European Memory of Communism

This presentation investigates the work of three contemporary Eastern European queer artists - Polish artist Karol Radziszewski (b. 1980), Estonian artist Jaanus Samma (b. 1982) and Russian artist Yevgeniy Fiks (b. 1972) Their work embraces a decidedly queer perspective on history, post-dictatorship transitioning to democracy, and citizenship. By taking on the perspective of sexual minorities, these artists are in a unique position to critically investigate both the respective authoritarian regimes in their countries, as well as the continued injustices and power struggles that are part of the newly established democracies and to provide valuable comments on memory politics in post-communism. Karol Radziszewski's artistic project, Kisieland (2009-ongoing), is a creative curatorial process, through which the actual personal archive of Ryszard Kisiel, the founder and publisher of the first communist-era gay zine called "Filo", is being displayed, and creatively reinterpreted by Karol Radziszewski in an attempt to explore and reconfigure the history of transnational and transregional queer networks during the Cold War. Jaanus Samma's exhibition "NSFW. A Chairman’s Tale" focuses on a Soviet Estonian collective farm chairman who was put on trial for acts of homosexuality in the 1960s. It brings together archive materials, such as the criminal file of kolkhoz chairman Juhan Ojaste (1921–90), but infuses them with a baroque, operatic aesthetic, adding fictional elements and reenactment videos to the exhibition. Finally, the installation art of Yevgeniy Fiks engages with photography, documents, propaganda material and the mythology of the Cold War, juxtaposing "Eastern" and "Western" political rhetoric in narratives that very often have to do with queer/homosexual identities. All three artists thus question hegemonic histories of the Cold War ,exposes the constructed nature of their dichotomies and makes them bear on contemporary political struggles. . How do these artists use queer histories and queer aesthetics to carve out space for these repressed histories in national/transnational narratives? What are their common takes on archives and remembrance practices? How do their works problematize post-communist memory cultures and their relationship with activism?