Björkö Konstnod

Domesticity and political containment among Cleveland based Russians

Anna Viola Hallberg's interest in the circumstances of exile stems from her own experience of coming from a small country in between the two former super powers of the US and the Soviet Union. The notion ofbetweenesshas inspired several projects critiquing the ambiguity between the private and the public, the narrative and the documentary, and the watcher and the watched. Informed by postcolonial studies, Hallberg explores themes such as migration, the red scare, displacement, longingandbelonging.

During her SPACES residency, Hallberg initiates the exploration of political containment in Cleveland through her new project, Imperial Differences. Hallberg appropriates the structure of the Kitchen Debate, in which Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev discussed the merits of capitalism and communism in 1959, to study Cleveland-based Russian communities. In place of world leaders gathered at a table, Hallberg will work with self-identified Russians who have emigrated from one country to another, sharing cultural, economic, and political aspects from both spheres. Together withHallbergthis specific community will engage in a process of dismantling topics in social and political contingencies, and the relation between domesticity and political containment.