CBEES Advanced Seminar with Tihomir Topuzovski.

Speaker: Tihomir Topuzovski, Research Leader at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje, Editor-in-Chief of the journal The Large Glass
Chair: Mark Bassin, Professor in History of Ideas, CBEES
Discussant: Irina Seits, Post-doctoral Researcher in Aesthetics, Södertörn University

Abstract

Politics of spatial violence refers to the context in which aesthetical manifestations in public spaces are embedded into politics, or which precisely belong to political regime principles.

The lecture involves empirical exposure, and is specifically concerned with the project named ‘Skopje 2014,’ which established a so-called aesthetico-political regime in public spaces through a series of architectonic buildings structures and monuments sponsored by the Government of the Republic of Macedonia and local authorities in the capital city Skopje.

The realization of the master plan exemplified what I mean by an aesthetic-political regime in terms of framing new narrative line and meaning to public spaces, in this case with neoclassical and baroque architecture and sculptures and also involving the population of the Republic of Macedonia in the drive for a new symbolic momentum.

Bio note

Tihomir Topuzovski received his doctoral degree from the University of Birmingham in the UK. He also has two BAs in Philosophy and Art, and an MA in Art, and has received numerous academic achievement awards and research grants. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies in the Södertörn University in Stockholm.

His research is at the intersection of philosophy, politics and the visual arts. Topuzovski currently works as a research leader in the interdisciplinary programme of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje and is editor-in-chief of the journal The Large Glass. He has published a number of papers and participated in individual and group exhibitions. He is currently writing a book chapter entitled Political protest, temporary urbanism and the deactivation of urban spaces, under contract with Springer.