MZ*BALTAZAR'S LAB
Mz* Baltazar’s Lab aims at generating a culture of fearless making! An environment that fosters creativity, activism and provocative thinking! We try to build an accessible, inclusive, open, safer and radical space, from which to evolve as people and as community. Open Source Technology is at the root of our philosophy, it enables us to share and collaborate without restrictions. We need this space to experiment with things as gender, hardware or ourselves.
- Interview with Mz*Baltazars Lab by Ale Zapata
A. Who is behind Mz*Baltazars Lab?
“MzBl: We identify ourselves as intersectional feminists. We come from a variety of educational backgrounds and geographic territories. The members are from diverse backgrounds, including but not limited to visual and media arts, theory and criticism. Most of us combine independent artistic practice with research and teaching activities at art institutions and technical universities.
The variety of our backgrounds enables an interdisciplinary approach and allows for a multifaceted and expanded practice of our collective. Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory is open and inclusive – everyone is welcome to join and become a part of our community. ”
A. What are your goals and motivations?
“MzBl: Our goal is to create an accessible, inclusive, open, safer and radical space where we can exercise our creativity, activism and critical thinking as individuals and as a community. Women*, trans* and non-binary persons have traditionally been excluded or denied valorizations in many areas, including art, science and technologies. We experiment with gender, hardware or ourselves and we practice open source sharing and collaboration with other women*, parents, feminists, LGBTQI researchers, facilitators and practitioners.
Usually, we invite them for lectures at a workshop or to become part of our annual exhibition program. Our exhibitions and events are open to all audiences. Be it an artist talk, a workshop, an exhibition, a discussion, or an open format, our events foster an exchange of feminist, intersectional and decolonial open knowledge, tools and practices by, for and with women*, trans* and non-binary artists and makers. ”
A. What are you working on now and how has the current situation affected/benefited you?
“MzBl: Our practice is organized through online collaboration, but it is also heavily centred around our physical space, where we run our annual exhibition and workshop program. Just as is the case with other art and hackerspace collectives, we are now in the process of rethinking and redesigning our program to meet the challenges of the current situation. This is not always an easy task. We already launched our online workshop series. Some other exhibitions may also be transformed into online shows, while there are projects which have
different aesthetics and goals – for instance, there are artworks that require an in situ physical interaction and might not fit that format. A few months ago we started a joint research project with Happylab Vienna, the Austrian Institute of Technology, and the Center for Human Computer Interaction at the University of Salzburg. It aims at enabling a wider and more inclusive access to making for underrepresented groups -with a special focus on women* and young adults from diverse backgrounds. Right now we are in the process of reformulating what inclusivity means when the access to the physical space is restricted to everyone. Now, it is primarily a matter of privilege of having time (as women* from diverse backgrounds might have a bigger load of unpaid domestic and care labour to perform or they might lack an access to social benefits and need to carry out labour in the gig economy sector) and technological affordance, but we need to formulate and test a hypothesis and to analyse the implications thereof.
Indeed, the new condition contains many limitations that pose a threat to the conventional way of experiencing art through physical attendance and interaction, but it also contains many possibilities of producing and sharing knowledge and creativity, and we are very curious to explore them. ”
A. You are holding a workshop named: ARTIVISM, FEMINISM, QUEERNESS. Can you tell us what Artivism is?
“What distinguishes art from other domains is the possibility to question the existing paradigms, to design and to propose models of individual and collective experience and organization of life. It is like a stage where there is no limit to self expression and critical thought.
Artivism (combination of art + activism) is the maximum expression of social awareness through art. It is an infinite spectrum of possibilities. It can be manifested through different media ( music, performance, painting, literature, etc ) but with the strong intention of contributing to inclusion, for a fairer society, rendering voice, for example, to minorities/groups ostracized by the society. ”
A. How can we currently support Mz*Baltazars Lab?
“An active participation in the life and projects of our community and solidarity in the struggle against heteropatriarchal capitalist oppression is in our opinion the best support that can keep us going.
As a non-profit off-space that financially exists largely through private and public donors, we are quite precarious when it comes to financing our operational costs – namely the space rental and utilities.
Our friends and supporters can contribute by donating to our collective’s account: http://www.mzbaltazarslaboratory.org/support-us/ ”
