Social Murder

synopsis

This short observational film by the Averklub Collective follows everyday life of Romani inhabitants of the poverty-stricken Slovak settlement of Rudňany. The images of their lives are accompanied by the readings from a text by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels, especially his 1845 description of the poor conditions of Irish workers in England by using the term social murder. Combining these two components, it arrives at a highly up-to-date study of poverty, which is often accompanied by racism and stigmatization.

"A class for which no one cares in terms of its education, which is left exposed to various odds, knowing no existential certainties, what reasons and interest it might have in anticipating to lead a “solid” life, and instead of using the favour of a moment, of thinking about outlying pleasures, which remain for it itself and its eternally staggering and changeable status largely insecure? A class which is made to carry all disadvantages of social order without receiving anything out of its benefits. A class for which this social order seems only hostile. And of this class, a demand to respect this social order is expected?"

Extract from from Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England.

biography

The Averklub Collective is a loose group operating in the residential area of Chanov, Czech Republic, formed thanks to the cooperation of the Romafuturismo Library and Aver Roma Association. The Collective consists of local artists and activists, but also includes e.g. visual artist and architect Zbyněk Baladrán (1973). They organize cultural and leisure time activities in the eponymous culture centre and run a social platform meant to improve the level of life for local inhabitants. They are also involved in research of unrevealed Romani history and other socio-political issues.

Zbyněk Baladrán (1973) is a visual artist, curator and exhibition architect. He first graduated in art history at Prague’s Charles University, later attending studios of visual communication, painting and new media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He was a cofounder of display, a space for contemporary art, that later developed into tranzitdisplay through merging with the project, tranzit.cz. His anthropologically centred works look for links between the past and its constructions in relation to dominating epistemological patterns, especially within the Western civilization.

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