‘Debates on Division’ is an interactive performance and an ongoing project that Gluklya ,with a modest suport of engaged curator Anna Bitkina,have been conducting since 2014 in different places and with different local contexts. First time the performance was presented as a part of the public program at Manifesta 10 in St Petersburg
and was closely connected to the post-Soviet conditions in contemporary Russia, the annexation of Crimea and Russian-Ukrainian conflict that was escalating at that time. Since then the project became a nomadic, discursive and performative platform and was conducted internationally. Following iterations of ‘Debates on Division’ opened up discussions around the world refugee crisis (Amsterdam, 2016, SMBA – Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam)
, on political tensions in a pre-Trump USA before the presidential elections (Washington DC, 2016, Creative Time Summit)
and on the future of Europe from a position and agency of the younger generation within current post-neoliberal conditions (Oslo, 2017, RAM Gallery and Public Library in Grünerløkka).
Every production is a different, locally inspired and made production.
The performance evolves around personal stories of individuals that talk about their Entire Divisions, raising the contradictory relationship with the society using a Cloth (a piece of their garderobe) as symbolic expression of it . Most important is story of the Individual that had a significant meaning in their lives. The Clothes is the form of these story reflecting the vulnerability of our lives and the same time qustionaring the issue of status as predicat. In the past Gluklya often used clothes as a main medium and as a tool to build a link between art and everyday life. For this project she takes personal stories of local people, and tries to create a public forum for individual voices and reflections upon the impact of public policy on people’s lives. The project consists of two parts – a performance in a format of a TV talk show that takes place in a theater or gallery space and then it’s followed by a procession outside, in a public place, on a street.
Latest version of ‘Debates of Division’ happened in 2019 in BOZAR during Performatic festival. It was a study of the current conditions of democracy in contemporary Europe, Interviews with politicians , visits to Parlament and talks with the politicians there which allows to have a closer look at the European Union headquarter, its political and social structures. The main themes of these piece is feeling of Guilt .