Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom is a project by Ines Doujak and Oliver Ressler that has been executed in various formats since 2014. Banners made by 12 artists will be presented on MOCAK’s elevation, showcasing utopian projections that serve the purposes of secession from and resistance to the world of now. Most of these banners were originally produced for the façade of the Secession in Vienna.

Mariam Ghani, You say we are but dust…, 2014 

Since 2004, Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh have been running the experimental archive Index of the Disappeared, which involves collecting proverbs, protest slogans and fragments of poetry from all over the world. ‘You say we are the dust. Who can stop the dust?’ was the slogan that, in 2007, accompanied the protests of Indians who, as a result of industrialisation, had been driven out of their traditional woodland and rural areas.

On her banner, Ghani has paraphrased and amplified the slogan, whilst retaining the poetic tone of the original. She has succeeded in relating her work to the context of its original presentation in 2014 on the façade of the Secession building in Vienna – a symbol of art that cannot be contained within traditional conventions.