Cultural Politics of Preservation in Globalization
Prishtina, Kosova, May 16 - 19, 2011

With Clive van den Berg, Isuf Berisha, Arindam Dutta, Albert Heta, Andrew Herscher, Nikolaus Hirsch, John Hutnyk, Vala Osmani, Nita Luci, Jorge Otera-Pailos, Susan Schuppli, Gayatri Chakravotry Spivak, Jelena Petrovic and Eyal Weizman.


Cultural Politics of Preservation in Globalization at Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina is based on series of informal meetings, presentations and research trips programmed for "The Cultural Politics of Preservation in Globalization", an international collective based in Columbia University in the City of New York.

This journey is co-organized by Andrew Herscher and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in collaboration with Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina.


Andrew Herscher received his PhD from Harvard University in 2002. His work explores the architectural and urban forms of political violence, cultural memory, collective identity, and human rights, focusing on modern and contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. He has been particularly involved in the Balkans, where he has worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as an investigator and expert witness on the war-time destruction of cultural heritage; directed the Department of Culture of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo; and co-founded and co-directed the NGO, Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project. His scholarly work has appeared in such publications as Architectural History, Assemblage, Grey Room, Harvard Design Magazine, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Oxford Art Journal, and Theory and Event. His book, Violence Taking Place: The Architecture of the Kosovo Conflict, was published by Stanford University Press in 2010 in the series "Cultural Memory in thePresent."At the University of Michigan, he is jointly appointed to the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Department of SlavicLanguages and Literatures, and the Department of Art History. From 2005 to
2009, he also coordinated the Rackham Interdisciplinary Seminar on Human Rights.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian literary critic, theorist and a University Professor at Columbia University. She is best known for the monograph "Can the Subaltern Speak?", considered a founding text of postcolonialism, and for her translation of Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology. She describes herself as a "practical Marxist-feminist-deconstructionist". She is also a visiting faculty member at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Spivak is best known for her contemporary cultural and critical theories to challenge the "legacy of colonialism" and the way readers engage with literature and culture. She often focuses on the cultural texts of those who are marginalized by dominant western culture: the new immigrant, the working class, women and
other "postcolonial subjects."

Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina is the only project institution for contemporary art and architecture in Kosova. Established in 2006 by artist Albert Heta and architect Vala Osmani, Stacion functions as a platform that employs strategies to build up a dialogue with a differentiated public; works with clear social and political intents, promotes the discourse of socially engaged art and architectural practice, stands for intellectual independence and works to create conditions where contemporary thought and practice can happen.