Eastern Europe is blowing a wind that never ceases to fill us with enthusiasm. The Estonian group Non Grata, the Ukrainian group R.E.P. Group (Revolutionary Experimental Space) and the Russian group Chto delat? (What to do?) are still little-known in France, but their performance art is a welcome sign of a promising revival of contemporary political art. Underlying their collective practices of video, performance and the reappropriation of public spaces, they blend theory, art and political activism, redefining critical perspectives on history, capitalism and the production of images, representations and subjectivities. What unites these radical forms is perhaps a permanent undecidability between reality and fiction, a form of enslavement and chaos, marked by the strong influence of a surrealist, absurdist, carnivalesque aesthetic, which makes as much use of parody, humor and subversion as it does of the reciprocal construction of imagination and political spaces.

Founded in early 2003 in St Petersburg, the working group Chto delat? (What to do?) is led by a collective of artists, critics, philosophers and writers, who develop collaborative artistic projects, notably through video works, installations, radio broadcasts or artistic explorations of urban space. A platform for engaged creativity, Chto Delat? builds its work from a collectivist and self-organizing perspective, focusing on poetics and politics today, with particular attention to the situation in contemporary Russia. In his videos, Chto delat? uses the processes of détournement or re-enactment, re-staging films by Jean-Luc Godard or texts by Bertolt Brecht. Chto Delat?’s work was shown in France at Le Plateau in 2007.

Non grata is a collective of forty performance artists, mostly from Estonia (Tallin), but also from Chile, Finland, Germany, Sweden and Quebec. The Non Grata collective is distinguished by the anonymity of its members, its disassociation from the local art scene, its disdain for the mass media, its wild actions and performances that can last for days (the “ghettomarathons”). Shown in Asia, Europe and the United States, Non Grata’s videos have never been seen before in France.

Screenings of
NON GRATA – National Security Law (2004, 5 min) – Sports monsters (5 min) – Catolica Chile Santiago Action Lecture Series – Part 2 (2005, 3 min) – Action lecture series leccion 2 – classification of performance (2005, 4 min. ) – Documentary film (2003, 9 min) / R.E.P. Group – REP Party, 2006, 4 min – Untitled action, 2005, 3 min – We will REP you, 2005, 11 min – Broadening of mind, 2005, 4 min – Smuggling, 9 min – Fast art, 2005, 9 min – Lirnyk, 2006, 13 min / CHTO DELAT ? – 2 + 2 Practicing Godard (2009, excerpt) – Angry Sandwichpeople, or in a Praise of Dialectic (2006, ) – a video project by Chto Delat, directed by Olga Egorova, Nikolay Oleinikov, Dmitry Vilensky, text by Bertolt Brecht