Victoria Mateos de Manuel –
Totalitarian Nostalgia in Slovene Current Curatorial Practices

In this presentation, I would like to review two current expositions, which are found in Ljubljana. I am talking about the photography exhibition “Going East. A visual journey into the new Easter Europe” in Photon Gallery and “Folk Art between home and the world” in SEM. Both try to be analyzed from the soviet-exoticization and romanticization found in Spanish psychoanalytical imaginary background, strongly attached to the Civil War. The questions that directed the visit of these two exhibitions were: are totalitarian aesthetics recognizable? Is there an East imaginary pattern for the Spanish viewer that connects the artworks? What would make totalitarian Aesthetics attractive for the Spanish spectator? 

Biography:

Victoria Mateos de Manuel (Ph.D., SPA) is currently an independent researcher, school teacher since 2020, and MA student in Spanish as a Foreign Language with the research warburgian project Ethosformel.

Books: El Silencio de Salomé. Ensayos coreográficos sobre lo dionisíaco en la modernidad (CSIC/Plaza y Valdés, 2019), Coreoteca. Un archivo de filosofía de la danza (Ediciones Complutense, 2021).

Web: https://independentresearcher.academia.edu/VictoriaMateosdeManuel

Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy (Universidad Complutense Madrid, 2009, with a 3-year excellence scholarship from the autonomous community of Madrid), Master of Arts in Gender and Diversity Studies (Freie Universität Berlin, 2011), Master’s degree in Teacher’s Training (Universidad Complutense Madrid, 2018), and European Ph.D. in Philosophy (Universidad Complutense Madrid, 2017), which was awarded the University Award for Doctoral Research in Philosophy and was funded by an FPU Scholarship of the Spanish Ministry of Education at the Institute of Philosophy of the Spanish Scientific Research Council (CSIC, 2012-15).

Associate lecturer (profesor asociado 4+4) at the Faculty of Philosophy of Complutense University Madrid (2018-20). Study and research stays at Philosophische Fakultät (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 2007-09), Institut für Theaterwissenschaft (Freie Universität Berlin, 2014), Département Danse (Université Paris 8-Saint Denis, 2014-15), and Institut für Philosophie, Literatur-, Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte (Technische Universität Berlin, 2019).

Additional training on the history of art and artistic practices through student vacancies and scholarships for specialization courses at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Somateca, 2012) and Museo Nacional del Prado (2015-17, 2019). Work experience in Gender, Diversity, and Aesthetics through internships at RAA Berlin e. V. (2010), Handiclapped Kultur Barrierefrei Berlin e.V. (2010-18), Zentrale Frauenbeauftragte Freie Universität Berlin (2011), and Xochicuicatl Berlin e. V. Lateinamerikanischer Frauenverein (2010-11).