On Saturday, 30 November 2024, Bari Raklori (Emília Rigová) finished her residency at the SNG - Slovak National Gallery. In a powerful performance, Occupo ergo sum! (I occupy, therefore I am!) with her movement in the exhibition Model: Museum of Contemporary Art, she embodied the fear of violent erasure in the name of an ideology of purity or nationhood in a typical authorial fabric inspired by Roma patterns. Her performative intervention within the gallery walls was also a painful and physically demanding affirmation of an existence, a present that is a condition of the future. It was as if she was palpating the various layers of violence perpetrated in art history against marginalized identities, reflecting the delicate balance of in/visibility and power/lessness in the institution.

In the current events, this performance takes on even more weight as we face political purges in our institution. It is a stark reminder of the ongoing struggle between the forces that see open minds and critical discourse as a threat and those who, on the contrary, struggle for freedom and diversity for all without distinction.

As the curator of the event and the exhibition, I find it significant that Rigová, in her performance Occupo ergo sum!, openly confronted the violence of institutional colonization. Today, her documentation is a testament to the importance of resistance and the courage to rebel against the power-grabbing of public spaces by select political groups. The values and ideas within these spaces must belong to all.

curator Lucia G. Stach