Honorary Award for the Diploma thesis of K. Winiecka I supervised 2021/22!
Great end-of-semester news – Katarzyna Winiecka, whose diploma thesis “Unmaking the Smuggler Narrative” I supervised at the , received a Honorary Award (Würdigungspreis) for research-led Final theses at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna 2021/2022 at the Graduate Celebration on 1 July 2022.
Winiecka’s thesis “illustrates how territorial, social and also legal borders are sites of permanent contestation and transgression. Starting from the criminalization of refugee activists of the Refugee Protest Camp Vienna under the criminal charge of “commercial smuggling within the framework of a criminal organization”, the impact of victimizing, criminalizing and heroizing discourses on refugee*migrant subjectivities is discussed. As a methodological tool, a triangle is designed that encompasses the reciprocal relations of the three figures victim, perpetrator and heroine in the discursive as well as linguistic field of “Fluchthilfe” [escape aid] and human smuggling. Using activism, art, and intersectional research approaches, the project will present ways to break down the hegemonic victimization of refugees, the heroization of humanitarian, unpaid escape aid, and the racialized and gendered demonization of paid human smuggling. Fluchthilfe & Du corresponds with the theoretical part of the work and is discussed as a possibility to elaborate a collaborative and solidary practice of knowledge production and mediation within the art field.”
I wish Ms. Winiecka the very best and courage for her future artistic, activist, research-led and mediative work with the acute and multi-dimensional problematic of agency, visibility, migration, refugees, justice, law and power.