Workshop: Past and Present of the Socialist Car Culture

In the framework of the project “Soviet West”, Johannes Bent, Airi Uuna, and Karsten Brüggemann organized an international interdisciplinary workshop at Tallinn University titled Past and Present of the Socialist Car Culture (8–11 November, 2024).

The workshop invited researchers, artists, and civil activists dealing with the history and current re-appropriations of socialist car cultures to present their works in an interdisciplinary setting (see overview of presentations). A broader audience was addressed by a public film screening of the Garage People (Germany/Russia, 2020) which was held in cooperation with the international Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), and followed by a Q&A including the film director Natalija Yefimkina who discussed the political implications of garage areas as anarchic and seemingly apolitical spaces in contemporary Russia. Further, the workshop’s participants visited the exhibition Garaaž. Гараж. Garage at the People’s Museum of Tallinn commented by its curators, followed by an excursion to a Soviet-time garage complex.

From the “Soviet West”, several project members were actively engaged in the workshop. The discussion following the film with the director and scholars was moderated by Kristo Nurmis. Airi Uuna held a presentation on the systemic factors motivating the Soviet car industry to produce advertising. A final discussion moderated by Karsten Brüggemann and Johannes Bent concluded the outtakes of the workshop and highlighted that socialist car cultures provided a broad variety of research objects enabling to apply a wide range of methodologies. 

The workshop was co-funded by the project „Soviet West“ (PRG2140), TÜHI Research Fund, and AAK Research Fund.