2019-09-16

Residency

In conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 2019, Engelstad is researching how performing and visual artists in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary (V4 countries) have evolved their work and methodologies over the past three decades and the overall changes in society and culture in the past 30 years. The foundation for this work is Voices From the Center, a project Engelstad produced in the V4 countries from 2007 - 2009, where she had in-depth conversations with former dissidents, apparatchiks, scientists, ecologists, artists, academics and villagers about how the end of socialism impacted their personal and professional lives, as well as society as a whole. The conversations became the basis for a web-based oral history project, exhibitions, public programs, and public art throughout Central Europe and the United States. Engelstad will travel throughout Central Europe to have conversations with many of the people that she interviewed in 2007 - 9, documenting changes over the past 10 years.