March

The third month of the year and perhaps already the most extraordinary. Surely you can imagine why it is the most extraordinary I mean honestly who has ever experienced such a situation. So, among us pastor daughters, definitely not me. For me, the whole situation is a bit surreal. Actually, I only know conditions like this happening all over the world right now from catastrophic or end-time films. And like probably many others, I've always dismissed them as nonsense and unrealistic. But well here we are. I don't want to overdo it now and even if public life has come to a standstill, this does not mean that nothing is happening here in Pekarna either.
But now from the beginning. At the beginning of the month, coved -19 was already an issue, but everything went as usual. So, like everyone else, I started the month with my normal activities. On Monday the second we had a PDD workshop which was very nice. The workshops with the children are always great fun but this time I enjoyed it even a bit more than usually because we were very active. We really moved a lot what was also cool for the kids because they had the opportunity to let off steam and to let their desire for movement run free. My favorite activity of this Workshop was playing table tennis, because I also like to play table tennis in free time or at home with my family, even if I’m not really what you would call a good table tennis player. In addition, our workshops and most other things do not focus on winning or being particularly good that’s not what it is all about. In my humble opinion, it should always be about everyone doing their best because if everybody is doing as good as they can, and they make an effort that’s what count. Because then you will gradually improve yourself and have fun and it's all about fun in the first place.

The following Tuesday we had a very nice information event at the High school of design in Maribor. At this event, like the PDD workshop, I worked with the other volunteers Fillip and Gilles. At the event, we presented information to the high school students about the European Solidarity Corps. Of course, we started with the basic questions. such as: what is the European solidarity corps? How can I participate Who can participate? Where can I go? For how long? And a lot more. After we talk about the formalities, we sheared out own experiences and feelings. From the search for a sending organization to what we have gained in new habits in the last six months in Maribor. afterwards, of course, the students had the opportunity to ask questions. To reinforce this event, we also had our coordinator Nataša with us, who was kind enough to help us with the language barrier and of course also with questions in the administrative direction. Certainly, one of the highlights of the month was for me the International Women's Day with Angela Davis. The event was organized within the scope of Aunt Rosa Library and was a great mix out off a presentation about her and parts off her book “Women, race and class”, a reading of selected excerpts from the same book and a subsequent round of discussions. The give you a short overview I will show u a few words about her and her book that are not from but that are way better than what I would write: “In her book, Angela Davis, political activist, writer and professor, offers a historical overview of women’s rights movement focusing on members of the working class. In more detail, she presents how racist and class-related stereotypes caused divisions within the movement itself. I really had a lot of fun at this event. I particularly enjoyed the dissuasions round at the end because many different opinions and interesting points of view were announced there.

 In the second half of the month, all of us felt the effects of the covid-19 pandemic. Fortunately for me this means only staying at home and working from there. Of course there are more pleasant things, but all in all it could of course be much worse. That's why I try to see it positively, even if I miss the contact to my friends, the company and the Gym. But I have to say working from home is not as bad as I thought it would be at the beginning. Because I already had some of my normal activities from home, for example, I have already taken part in Slovenian classes and also taught German. What makes me very confident is that the events that we have planned for the next few weeks through the Webcams of our computers will be great. Of course it is not a comparison to normal but for now we have to make the best of it.

Lucas

Blog of March 2020 - Coronavirus special edition

March 2020 is a month that will stay in the minds, the coronavirus has paralyzed the whole society. Before we talk about all this, I will first describe the beginning of the month.

The first week of March begins with our regular appointment with the children of the special dormitory. The workshop was a quiz around the rooms of the house, especially the kitchen. The next morning we had a presentation of the European Solidarity Corps at the High School of Art and Design. We were able to introduce ourselves and explain our approach to join the European Solidarity Corps. The students asked us questions, both technical and personal, about going abroad and our feelings about Slovenia and Maribor in particular. The advantage is that all three of us are from different countries and with different profiles. In the afternoon, it was my fourth French course. This course was mainly based on oral practice of the language. I adapted my course around vocabulary and pronunciation. I spoke more French and the students were able to discover my favourite places, neighbourhoods and locations in Paris. On Thursday, a Spanish psychologist proposed a workshop called: Let's talk about mental health. This workshop was about sadness. The event introduced us, first of all, to what sadness is and then gave us some advice on how to accept sadness. The conference ended with a very interesting exchange around the subject. During the whole week, together with Urška, Filip and Lucas, we are preparing an event around Angela Davis as part of the reading cycle of the Aunt Rosa Library. I also spent a lot of time in the gallery and was able to answer visitors' questions about my exhibition. At the same time, I also prepared my workshop about the private and public space related to my exhibition.

The following week, we start on Tuesday evening with the event around Angela Davis and more specifically around her book: Woman, race and class. Urška prepared a general presentation of Angela Davis and we then developed more specifically around two chapters. Chapter 13, entitled "The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective" and chapter 11, entitled "Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist". The evening was very enriching, with much debate.

On Thursday, I was supposed to have my workshop at gallery K18 around private and public space but unfortunately it was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

From Wednesday March 11th, the Slovenian government decided to cancel all public events and from day to day, the restrictions became more and more important. From that moment on, the whole team had to think about how to continue working in its conditions. I must confess, like everyone else, that I never imagined that one day a problem like this would develop, but life is an accumulation of surprises, good or bad. Starting the following week, we transformed our weekly meetings into videoconferences. Together with Lucas and Filip, we decided to adapt our walk, which we had planned for the Rajzerfiber Walking Festival, in a digital way. It was a collaborative work where we had to do it with digital means. In the end, this crisis is a bit of an experiment in teleworking for me. At the end of the month, I also adapted my French course in a digital way and we are working on a digital reading around Simone de Beauvoir's work, the Second Sex.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, see you in a month for April's blog.
Take care of yourself.
Gilles.

“No one is safe until All are protected!”

Zdravo,
in the previous blog post I wrote about the numerous events we organized in February, namely: art history lectures, workshops at Druga gimnazija, Dom Antona Skale and TOTI DCA; documentary screening, renovation of K18 facade, collaboration with Radio MARŠ, exhibition “Wall(s)” by Gilles Baudry, and, the lecture series focusing on the creation of contemporary USA.

We welcomed March equally busy with workshops at Dom Antona Skale, promotion of ESC at school of design, and presentation at TOTI DCA.

Promotion of ESC at School of Design    

   Presentation at TOTI DCA   

Also, we concluded the lecture series on the creation of contemporary USA with the lecture of Igor Bijuklič titled “Creation of the American Society Through the History of Modern Propaganda”. Again, you are welcome to listen to recordings of the lectures by clicking on the following link: https://soundcloud.com/filip-bojani (all three lectures from the cycle are in Slovene language).

Lecture at Gallery K18

The cycle was the last thing I participated in before the outbreak of coronavirus in Maribor. Now it’s been almost one month since we’re living in semi-isolation, striving to work from home. We have regular online meetings with our colleagues from PMM and with our ESC coordinator, we enrolled in various online courses on https://www.edx.org/ (I highly recommend you to enroll, most, if not all, of the courses are for free), I am also in the midst of my Slovene language course, and for some reason, I find it easier to write, rather than speak in Slovene… With Lucas and Gilles, we re-made our guided tour for the “Festival of Walks” which metamorphosed to the “Festival of Walks from Home”, and now it is an online tour which you are welcome to check out on the Rajzefiber Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/rajzefiberbiro/). At the moment, three of us are organizing webinar on Simone de Beauvoir and her book “The Second Sex” which is going to be held online, next Thursday, April 9, at 7 p. m.

Anyhow, our day-to-day life changed in the past few weeks, for many of us it means that we need to stay at home, and work from home. But that is a privilege. There are many who were already in the perilous situation, and since the spread of the virus, it is even more challenging for them. Think, for example, of the refugees and other migrants, unprotected laborers in factories, medical staff, and precarious workers. The virus is class-blind, but it’s easier to stay safe behind the walls of one’s home, unconcerned with the access to medical supplies or treatment. 

Therefore, I call you to sign the open letter from the Transbalkan Solidarity Group (https://transbalkanskasolidarnost.home.blog/eng/) which demands urgent action of those in charge, and solidarity from all of us, to deal with the refugees and migrants in Balkans, because, as the title of the letter reads: “No one is safe until All are protected!”.

Another appeal I invite you to sign is of more local character: management of the supermarket chain LIDL in Maribor unjustly fired their employee and president of the LIDL syndicate Tjaša Kozole, in this period when the underpaid grocers are deemed “essential” for the “public good”. You can sign the petition here. Most of management and leadership, in general, deals awkwardly in these new circumstances. I know that there are many collectives and organizations which do well and strive to improve wellbeing of many and I would like to assume that some governments are doing similar.

Here in Slovenia that is hardly the case, namely, a series of disgraceful measures new far-right government introduced are outrageous. I would like to call them unheard of, but unfortunately, they are symptomatic for the Yugosphere and Central-Eastern Europe, at least. For example, in Hungary, the country I lived before coming to Slovenia, Orban and his accomplices used “state of emergency” from 2015 to create mass panic under false pretext in order to capitalize on it. Soon after they barricaded their borders. During the two years I stayed in Budapest I witnessed Orban expel my university and international NGO’s from the country, ostracize homelessness, jeopardize workers and their syndicates, take over academy of sciences and ban research which is not to their liking, encouraged oil company to privatize their oldest university, welcomes neo-Nazis to converge in Budapest for the “Day of Honor” while turning the police on people demonstrating the event… and most recently, Hungarian government seeks to ban legal gender recognition for transgender people.

Amid pandemic, when, instead of focusing on ways to better the living circumstances of the people in Hungary, Orban used the crisis as a pretext to grab unlimited and indefinite power by proclaiming a state of emergency, officially becoming new führer of Hungary.

In order to prevent similar turn of the events here in Slovenia, we should demand change now! Unfortunately, we can’t go on streets, but we can talk and write about it, create, or join many new and creative ways to rebel, such as:

Balcony Protest / Protest z balkonov (https://www.facebook.com/events/2582375822013375/?event_time_id=2582375828680041)

Fridays for Future / Petki za prihodnost - Online (https://www.facebook.com/events/587224615397416/?event_time_id=648029622650248)

or join #mislizbalkona.

✊

Filip

Busy February

Zdravo!
During February, at Pekarna Magdalenske Mreže we hosted and organized quite a number of events. It felt good to be busy, running between Pekarna, gallery, and ateliers.
In Gallery K18, we started with the third cycle of lectures on art history taught by Simon Žlahtić on topic: “National Movements and Art of 19th Century”, held every Wednesday.

 Art History Lectures by Simon Žlahtič in Gallery K18

Together with my ESC colleagues, Gilles and Lucas, and our coordinator Nataša, we held two presentations about LGBTQ+ community in Slovenia at Second gymnasium in Maribor, had workshop with kids at “Dom Antona Skale” and held presentation and cook-out at “TOTI DCA” with elderly

Presentation at the II. gimnazija Maribor

Presentation at TOTI DCA

For the Library of the Aunt Rosa we organized the screening of the documentary film "Beyond the Red Lines" and discussed about the struggles for climate justice, on both local and global level. Regarding the outdoor activities, we went through hell to remove the old sticker from K18’s façade, and after four days of scratching, we were victorious, but due the major reconstruction works of the street in front of the gallery, our labour goes unnoticed. 

Works on K18 facade

But inside the gallery, there was plenty to see and hear. We hosted Radio MARŠ where PMM colleagues and guests talked about PMM and K18 program.

We prepared Gilles’ photo exhibition titled “Wall(s) / Zid(ovi)”. Turnout on vernissage was amazing, and I was glad to see some fresh faces at the gallery. 

Vernissage at K18

Furthermore, we organized another cycle of lectures about the creation of contemporary USA in Gallery K18. Blaž Kosovel introduced us to the cycle with lecture “Creation of contemporary corporation and modern USA”. Week after followed second lecture by Primož Turk titled “The birth of management as tool of controlling people”. You are welcome to listen to recordings of lectures (in Slovene language) on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/filip-bojani/blaz-kosovel-nastanek-sodobne-korporacije-in-modernih-zda.

Filip

...in the style of Jamie Oliver in front of everyone

Although February is the shortest of all months, it was no less eventful for me and the other volunteers than the other eleven parts of the year. From the fun-packed PDD workshops to LGBTQ + lectures in high school to a Toti DCA presentation, there were a lot of cool events this month that gave me a lot of joy and I would like to share with you. Of course, in addition to the new events and projects, the ones that were already running ones like the German class and RUBRIKA: FILMOPEKA were again integrated into my weekly routine this month. But one by one we start where the bull has the horns: at the beginning. PDD The workshops with the children are always great fun this month, in addition to sports games and exercise in the dormitory's fitness room, there was also a quiz on the menu, both of those activities were super fun for the children. Unfortunately, this was not quite the case for me, as I did not understand everything in the quiz in Slovenian, therefore I could not help the other volunteers as much as I would have liked to, but nonetheless it was very nice since I had some time to watch the happening and to enjoy the enthusiasm of those who were involved. Another highlight of the month was the LGBT workshops in the II. gymnasium. In which the other two European volunteers Filip and Gilles, together with me, prepared a presentation, the basis for a discussion round and a small glossary on the subject. Armed with what we had prepared we went into two classes to talk about this topic. For this we had two lessons 45 minutes each. But in addition to events for teenagers and children, we had an event for seniors. Gilles Fillip and I also worked closely together on this. We were invited to have an event as part of Toti DCA. We thought that a presentation about mental and physical health could be a nice idea and so we developed a concept for a lecture called "healthy body healthy mind". At the beginning we had thought of a quiz for self-test so that each participant could see how much he knows about healthy eating. We then discussed the need for various foods and the basic principles of nutrient supply and used one example to calculate the need for one person. afterwards there were healthy snacks for everyone, most of which we had prepared in advance. But not all of them, as the absolute highlight of the event, Gilles freshly cooked a vegetarian bread spread, with a lot of protein and unsaturated fatty acids, in the style of Jamie Oliver in front of everyone.

After the refreshment, the evening was concluded by Filip and his part of the presentation. Here he went into the safe use of media and explained how fake news in the internet can spread extremely quickly, even though they are not true. Rubriko Filmopeka got serious this month. I wrote my first two reviews. I was naturally excited and a bit nervous who they would be liked. because they were my first and I had put a lot of effort into it. Fortunately, everyone liked it. :) Of course there are still a few small things to improve. But I will tackle this in my next review. And last but not least, the German lessons. I look forward to every Thursday. I really enjoy passing on my language. Because the participants' thirst for knowledge also spurs me to constantly improve my method of conveying knowledge and my content. So in conclusion I can say that February was a very nice and varied month for me. And I hope that there will be some more months like this.

Lucas