The 3rd International Conference, Where is the Line Between Us?: Cautionary Tales From Now, brought together practitioners and thinkers from the fields of art, history, and sociology to explore new models of cultural production and various forms of approaching history and one’s own past that have been shaped by the unique characteristics of the former Soviet bloc.

Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Grammar of Freedom / Five Lessons: Works from the Arteast 2000+ Collection, the conference became the first in Russia to take as its starting point common urgencies shared by artists from Eastern Europe and Russia.

The title is a reference to a 1980 series by Komar and Melamid, where the duo collaborated with American artist Douglas Davis on photographs that commented on the political divide between East and West during the Cold War. Standing on opposite sides of a thick vertical line, the artists hold signs with provocative questions that ask what the line is for, until the last image, when they finally reach toward one another and move through the barrier.

Examining the legacy of such a divide in relation to current polarizing politics, the conference convened three sessions, each exploring evolving positions toward the East/West axis in a post-socialist world. Through lectures and panel discussions, speakers revisited select regional histories since 1989 to suggest how our understanding of past situations can change and develop through the perspectives offered by present circumstances, and vice versa. Acknowledging the renewed need for retrospection as a progressive tool to look to the future, participants addressed the “revisionist” approach to making history while opening up the opportunity for fresh engagement with underrepresented worldviews and their transformative potential in today’s world.