The Magic Closet and the Dream Machine: Post-Soviet Queerness, Archiving, and the Art of Resistance is an artistic research project between the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Vienna funded through FWF – Austrian Science Fund | PEEK (AR567). The project began in 1.3.2020 and will run until 29.2.2024.

The team is composed of Katharina Wiedlack (University of Vienna), Masha Godovannaya (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), Ruthia Jenrbekova (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), and Iain Zabolotny (University of Vienna).

We are a team of researchers and artists from Austria, Russia and Kazakhstan. Our interdisciplinary project aims at creating recognition for queer lives and communities in post-Soviet spaces through the experimental artistic research forms called “the Dream Machine” and “the Magic Closet”.

The project is a reaction to the relatively recent rise in homo- and transphobia in post-Soviet countries. The existing research on the matter analyses the oppressive laws, structural and physical violence, damage/pain narratives of non-conforming people but pays little attention to the ways queer lives form communities, resist the pressure and continue life and love queerly despite of everything. Coming from different academic and activist backgrounds as well as artistic practices, we work together to bridge this research gap by documenting vitalizing images and narratives of queer people from post-Soviet spaces. Most importantly, the project will support queer post-Soviet individuals and groups to reclaim their agency, speak for themselves and create spaces to imagine different and better futures.

Over the course of the project we will work with local queer communities and activists in Central Asia, the Baltic region, Eastern Europe, Siberia and the Caucasus. Together we will craft artistic artefacts that reflect people’s lived realities and dreams, and at the same time help to actively build communities across borders, local, national, ethnic, class, gender and sexual differences.

Who we are

Katharina Wiedlack is Assistant Professor at the Department for English and American Studies, University of Vienna. Her research interests are transnational American studies, queer and feminist theory, popular culture, post-socialist, decolonial and disability studies. Her monograph “Queer-feminist Punk: an Anti-Social History” was published in 2015 by the queer-feminist publisher Zaglossus. It analyses the divers creative radical queer-feminist punk communities that emerged in North America in the late 1980s and transform their respective cultural landscapes till today. Her most current research project “Rivals of the Past, Children of the Future: Localizing Russia within US National Identity Formation from a Historical Perspective” investigates Russian American encounters, and the mobilization of values and identities.

Masha Godovannaya is an experimental filmmaker, queer-feminist researcher, curator, and educator. Approaching art production as artistic research and collective action, Masha’s artistic and scholarly practices draw on combinations of approaches and spheres such as moving image theory, experimental cinema, and DIY video tradition, social science, post-soviet/postsocialists studies, queer theory, and decolonial methodologies. Masha holds an MFA degree in Film/Video from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, USA, and an MA degree in Sociology from European University in St. Petersburg, Russia. Currently, she is a candidate in PhD in Practice at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria.

Ruthia Jenrbekova is an interdisciplinary post-studio artist and cultural organizer. Co-founder of Krёlex zentre (together with Maria Vilkovisky). Fields of interest: queer ecology, material semiotics, arts-based methodologies, trans*feminism. Currently is a PhD candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Iain Zabolotny is an activist, translator and researcher. Coming from Novosibirsk, Russia, and currently living in Vienna, Austria, they have been active in queer-feminist activism and community building in both countries since 2014. Iain holds a diploma in public relations and is currently studying transcultural communications at the University of Vienna. Their research interests include queer theory, community interpreting and community building, the East-West divide.