Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid, 2010, Ljubljana. 19’17”
Naked Freedom conceptualizes the possibility of social change under the conditions of financial capitalism and its financialization processes that permeate art, the social, political and the critical discourse. The collective process of making the video “Naked Freedom” is about enactment of social, political, and perfomative practices. It is a collective performance for the screen that resonate with performers off screen lives. The work connects Ljubljana, Belgrade, Durham/USA and presents a conceptual political space of engagement that allows for rethinking what local community is, who can be part of contemporary communities, who is to be left out, what is the price to be paid.
In Ljubljana 7 young activists, musicians, poets, and youth workers, members of the Youth Center Medvode, a village near Ljubljana, discuss capitalism, colonialism, education, and the power of art as a possibility for politics. They as well rethinking the possibility for a radicalization of a proper life. The work is not only about to recognize the local youth power, but as well to initiate through the making of the video work social relations that will make visible agencies who ask for new possibilities.
In Belgrade, Siniša Ilić, artist and performer, deconstructs violence (from heteronormative to nationalistic) and is a connector between different spaces within the realm of culture, art, activism.
The last part of the video re-questions the non-EU citizens in Europe and the status of Africa in Europe and Africans trying to live and work in the present moment of the European Union. In this part a precise historical analysis is given to the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion and prevention of work and life in the EU. It presents an exchange in between Marina Gržinić and Kwame Nimako. They met at the Workshop on Education, Development, Freedom, at Duke University, Durham, USA, organized by the Center for Global studies (25 to 27 February 2010), notably by Walter Mignolo. Kwame Nimako is theoretician from Ghana who lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is in charge of NiNsee, Amsterdam (The National Institute for the Study of Dutch Slavery and its Legacy).
The last part of the video lays a wider context in order to understand the changed conditions of lives and works for the non-EU residents in particular the Africans. It shows that exists a history of these relations and that the new geopolitical reality of Europe, that includes old West Europeans and new former Eastern European states, is based onto historical hegemonic mechanisms of division that are today forgotten, but still imperial and murderous in their policies.