12 June – 22 August 2026, Bastion 3, Timișoara
Opening: Friday, 12 June, 6:00 PM
What does organised disobedience look like today? Is it the refusal to accept unjust social norms, to tolerate extremist rhetoric, or perhaps the simple act of refusing to look away and pretend that everything is fine?
On Friday, June 12, at 6:00 PM, we’re opening Exercising Disobedience, an exhibition by Vladan Jeremić and Rena Rädle, curated by Teodora Talhoș.
You may be wondering what we mean by the title, Exercising Disobedience. Why do we need to practice it? How can we practice it? And what kind of disobedience are we talking about, exactly?
One of the most dangerous forms of submission is anticipatory obedience: the moment when people voluntarily give up certain rights and freedoms before being compelled to do so. Historian Timothy Snyder, known for his work on Eastern Europe and the Holocaust, as well as for his sharp criticism of Donald Trump, warns that this form of submission shows those in power how far they can go in restricting rights. Once citizens surrender their rights voluntarily—including the right to freedom of expression—those rights may be lost irrevocably.
Exercising Disobedience, an exhibition by the artistic duo Rena Rädle and Vladan Jeremić, presents a series of artistic tools that may help us cultivate and practice different forms of resistance, particularly on a collective level, because we may need them sooner than we expect. The works on display represent only a fragment of the artists’ oeuvre, developed over the course of more than twenty years at the intersection of art and politics. Nevertheless, they offer an overview of a practice deeply concerned with the role of art in society and its transformative potential. One of the central questions to which the artists repeatedly return is: what are the limits of artistic intervention, and how can art contribute to collective struggles without being reduced to a merely illustrative or aesthetic function?
Within the context of the exhibition, disobedience is understood in close relation to solidarity. Perhaps invoked too frequently in recent years, particulary within major art institutions, the term seems to have lost much of its original meaning. This is all the more evident at a time when profoundly human acts of compassion continue to be punished. Providing humanitarian aid to migrants in distress in the Mediterranean Sea has repeatedly been criminalized and severely punished, while individuals expressing solidarity with the victims of crimes committed in Gaza have faced institutional exclusion or lost their jobs.
The works presented in the exhibition reflect the outcomes of past collective actions in which a wide range of participants—children, neighbours, and migrants alike—contributed to the creation of collective forms of action by sharing their knowledge and experiences with the artists. At certain moments, some of these works also moved beyond their status as art objects and became tools used in real situations of crisis or social unrest: they served as barricades, platforms for public speeches, or even containers for humanitarian aid.
The exhibition is complemented by a collective installation created by ten artists from Timișoara, Alessandra Domuța, Ana Crețu, Bogdan Dan, Cristiana Brehuescu, Cvetelina Angelova, Denis Ene, Dona Arnakis, Ingrid Pescaru, Natalia Păun, Vlad Gheorghe Cadar, in collaboration with Rena Rädle and Vladan Jeremić. During a workshop, participants painted on boxes that can be used in different contexts, expressing concerns related to everyday life: the lack of spaces for living and artistic production, violence against women, censorship, and the lack of support from both the state and society regarding mental health.
So let’s discover what tools of disobedience are already at our disposal and how we might use them in our everyday lives!
Working together since 2002 between Belgrade and Berlin, Rena Rädle and Vladan Jeremić bring drawing, photography, installation, publishing and interventions in public space into a practice shaped by questions of solidarity, conflict and collective resistance. Their work looks closely at social and cultural realities, as well as at the structures and working conditions of the contemporary art world.
“Our exhibition, Exercising Disobedience, at Indecis Artist Run Space in Timișoara presents a segment of our artistic practice situated at the intersection of art and politics, where we question dominant narratives and expose social contradictions. Rather than simply representing our past activities, we ask where the limits of artistic intervention lie and how art can be made useful in collective struggle without becoming mere illustration or an empty aesthetic object.
Treating disobedience as a skill that must be learned, rehearsed, and exercised collectively, we move away from singular heroic gestures and instead focus on small, repeated, often unglamorous actions that accumulate over time and build a real capacity for resistance.
Drawing on experiences in which unexpected participants—children, migrants, and neighbours—have taught us to stop leading and begin following, the objects we present are not meant to remain safely inside the gallery. They are conceived as barricades, platforms for public speech, or distribution boxes, and become fully realised only when they are transferred to communities and transformed through use.
Underlying all of this is our attention to the labour involved in organising, and to solidarity as a practice that requires patience, room for failure, and continuous discussion rather than immediate results.
Ultimately, we have created conditions for action. We invite visitors not simply to look, but to consider what they would do with these tools—and whether they are ready to exercise disobedience before the need arises.”
– Rena Rädle and Vladan Jeremić
Bringing together installations, video works and publications produced in recent years, the exhibition traces a historical line between the Paris Commune—considered one of the earliest examples of artistic and social organisation based on democratic principles—and the ArtLeaks project. The exhibition will also include a collective installation developed together with artists from Timișoara: Cvetelina Angelova, Dona Arnakis, Cristiana Brehuescu, Dorian Bolca, Vlad Gheorghe Cadar, Ana Crețu, Bogdan Dan, Alessandra Domuța, Denis Ene and Mihail Riglea.
The weekend continues on Saturday, June 13, at 11:30 AM, with a new Artist Stalk featuring Rena Rädle and Vladan Jeremić. Rather than focusing directly on the exhibition, the conversation will move through the things that currently hold their attention: books, artists, researchers, recent experiences and ideas that quietly shape the way they see and work.
See you at the opening!
The exhibition is part of the Power Station programme, a legacy component of the “Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture” National Cultural Programme, dedicated to strengthening the capacity of the cultural sector and implemented by the Timișoara Project Centre.
Events at Bastion 3 are organised in partnership with the Municipality of Timișoara through the Timișoara Project Centre.