Jasmina Cibic, ‘A Flag, A Song, A Palace’ (public lecture film screening)
Please register your place via the Ticket Source website
Through films, sculptures, performances and installations, the artist Jasmina Cibic (b. Ljubljana 1979) explores the operations of soft power since the early twentieth century. In this public lecture, she will discuss recent projects that discern recurring historical patterns and cycles in how culture is instrumentalised in endeavours towards transnationalism and potential multilateral solidarity. Interweaving her immersive installations and cinematic works with archival documents, she will explore settings including the League of Nations (the interwar precursor to the United Nations), the inaugural conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (held in Belgrade in 1961), and national pavilions created for World Expositions during periods of global conflict. The talk will be followed by a screening of Cibic’s award-winning short film The Gift (2021).
The event will be chaired by Prof Nicholas Perkins (Faculty of English), curator of the recent Bodleian Library exhibition Gifts and Books (2023).
Free entry, open to all. Please register in advance here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/magdalen-music/t-qjgmlmk.
This event is held in association with the academic symposium ‘Music and Diplomacy in the Long Twentieth Century’ (Magdalen College, 1–2 February) convened by Giles Masters and Bethan Winter, with generous support from the Magdalen College Tutorial Office.
Student workshop:
On the morning of Friday 2 February, Cibic will be leading a student workshop in Magdalen entitled ‘Statecraft and Its Illusionist Machines’. Through materials relating to the architecture and archives of institutions of multilateralism in twentieth-century Europe – including the Palace of Nations in Geneva, the Palace of the Federation in Belgrade, and the European Parliament buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg – the workshop will explore ‘culture’s role as a political style-bearer and a Trojan horse for covert diplomacy and political interest’. Interested students (in any subject) should write to Giles Masters (giles.masters@magd.ox.ac.uk) or Bethan Winter (bethan.winter@spc.ox.ac.uk) for further details and to sign up.
