News
Documentary Screening and Exhibition Book Distribution
The Fire and the Wedding
Wednesday 18 April 19.00 at DEPO
"The Fire and the Wedding" videos are essentially the visual record of the struggle of Kurdish villagers from Kotranıs in Hakkari to maintain their livelihood and identity after they were displaced and forced to migrate by the state in 1994, settling in the suburban area Türközü in Ankara and earning their living by collecting waste paper at the city center.
Over the last decade, as different, darker facets of recycling; for instance that forced migration, discrimination against the Kurdish people is concealed behind the waste we litter on the street without so much as a second glance, became acknowledged, various videos and texts on this issue have been produced. Yet additionally, in the same period, there were also some people from Kotranıs who recorded their own experiences and expressed their testimonies via video themselves.
"The Fire and the Wedding" reveals what has been experienced in this country's capital city's garbage as the projection of the Kurdish struggle for existence through our shared visual testimony.
Visiting hours: Tuesday through Saturday
between 11.00 - 19.00.
All activities of DEPO are free of charge.
Address: DEPO / Tütün Deposu Lüleci Hendek Caddesi No.12
Tophane 34425 İstanbul
Para/Site presents: rites, thoughts, notes, sparks, swings, strikes. a
hong kong spring
rites, thoughts, notes, sparks, swings, strikes. a hong kong spring
13 April–29 April 2012
Opening:
12 April 2012, 19–21 hrs
G/F, 4 Po Yan Street
Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
Para/Site proudly presents rites, thoughts, notes, sparks, swings, strikes. a hong kong spring, a month long assembly of events and situations, composing an ever evolving non-spatial exhibition. A few works and poems installed in the space at Para/Site combine with talks, performances, screenings and exercises of curating by artists in an age of mobile images to produce a restless exhibition. Artists, curators, critics, art historians, architects, scholars and writers from different parts of the world contribute answers, interpretations, reflections, interrogations and dialectics through different forms of artistic practice and speech.
Spring comes back every year; the unity and univocality of this season as an object, both semantic and physical, are bundled together under the inexhaustible qualities of its name. On the other hand, spring marks a commencement and a promise. a hong kong spring is restlessly aware of the radical political spectre this word once again holds. The surrounding streams of tension in the polity of Hong Kong and Mainland China entertain this sense of unease and unspoken hopes.
Scholar Ackbar Abbas describes a Hong Kong phenomenon of mourning for the loss of things that still exist, as if summoning the ghost of collective history in the midst of its own miscarriage. People mourn for the ghosts of a spectral history, a history yet to come. If this concept of premature history can also be borrowed to look at the art history of Hong Kong then a hong kong spring interrogates the possibilities of art history and archival narratives in expanding the space of form in art criticism and practice. It focuses on the discursive formations in the void of the cultural fabric of Hong Kong by borrowing the entangled ontological architecture of the living and the ghostly.
a hong kong spring is restlessly aware of the radical political spectre this word once again holds. The surrounding streams of tension in the polity of Hong Kong and Mainland China entertain this sense of unease and unspoken hopes.
Para/Site’s space accommodates works by Liu Chuang, Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor, a poem by Alfian bin Sa’at and an architecture of humble size designed by artist Zheng Guogu attempting to provide an enclosed viewing experience for moving images curated by a number of artists. This setting is joined by the series of events taking place at Para/Site and other venues throughout Hong Kong.
The first weekend of events, at the McAulay Studio, Hong Kong Arts Centre, explores different forms of criticism employed in contemporary cultural and political practice. On Friday, 13 April, between 18.00–21.00, the welcome and introduction by Cosmin Costinas (Executive Director/Curator, Para/Site, Hong Kong) and Venus Lau (curator, Hong Kong) is followed by a conversation between Alfian bin Sa’at (writer, poet, and playwright, Singapore) and Liu Wai Tong (poet, activist, Hong Kong), a lecture by Ekaterina Degot (art historian and curator, Moscow) and an artist talk by Bai Xiaoci (artist and researcher, Shenzhen). The following day, Saturday, 14 April, 15.00-19.30, hosts presentations by Lee Weng Choy (art critic, Singapore), Galit Eilat (writer and curator, Eindhoven/Tel Aviv), Pauline Yao (curator and scholar, Beijing), Keiko Sei (scholar and activist, Bangkok), followed by a video programme composed by the speakers as an anchor for their presentations and a plenary discussion.
The second weekend identifies urgencies and methods of writing recent histories. Friday, 20 April, 18.00–21.00, at the Hong Kong University includes lectures by Natasa Ilic (curator and critic, Zagreb/Berlin) and Tony Chakar (architect, artist and writer, Beirut). These propositions continue on Saturday, 21 April, 15.00-19.30, at Para/Site with presentations by Hyunjin Kim (curator and writer, Seoul), Philip Tinari (curator and critic, Beijing), Miguel Lopez (art historian, activist and curator, Lima), Ahmad bin Mashadi (art historian and curator, Singapore), followed by a video programme composed by the speakers and a plenary discussion.
The last day of events, Saturday, 28 April, 15.00-20.00, at Para/Site, contains presentations by Hong King based artists invited to curate the moving images programme: Lee Kit, Adrian Wong, Chow Chun Fai, Nadim Abbas, Kitty Ko & Kong Chun Hei, MAP office. During the entire session, interventions by artists Joao Vasco Paiva (Hong Kong), Adrian Wong, Xu Qu (Beijing), and Li Liao (Beijing) are on view.
For more information and live streaming please refer to: www.para-site.org.hk
rites, thoughts, notes, sparks, swings, strikes. a hong kong spring is curated by Cosmin Costinas and Venus Lau.
Para/Site address and opening hours:
G/F, 4, Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
Wednesday–Sunday 12–19 hrs
Closed on public holiday
Hong Kong Arts Centre
2 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
For further information, please contact:
Para/Site Art Space
G/F, 4, Po Yan Street
Sheung Wan
Hong Kong
t: +852 25174620
f: +852 25176850
e:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Subversion, Cornerhouse
Sat 14 April – Tue 5 June 2012
www.cornerhouse.org/subversion
Symposium: Fri 13 April
Friday 13 April, 11–16:30
www.cornerhouse.org/symposium
Film season: From Sat 14 April
www.cornerhouse.org/arab-lebanese-cinema
70 Oxford Street
Manchester
M1 5NH
Tues–Sat 12–20, Sun 12–18
Free Entry
0161 200 1545
Exhibition
Subversion brings together eleven emerging and internationally recognised artists in a unique group show of new and recent contemporary art that explores and rethinks notions of ‘modern Arab identity.’
Rather than conforming, the artists function as performers, tricksters and interventionists, often using dark humour to explore and parody the social masks they are expected to wear by everyone from politicians to the media, and the art world.
Combining autobiography with fiction, the artists can be found cross-referencing popular culture and art history with subversive parody of current socio-political expectations. Their work expresses the contradictions faced by individuals who must perform multiple roles in a society that is constantly shifting in the manner in which it is mediated, articulated, and presented. Together, they illustrate fragments of the distorted imagination that often preoccupies the region that we have come to know as the ‘Arab world’.
Emerging Gaza artists and filmmakers Tarzan and Arab will present their award-winning Gazawood project (2010), including a series of striking cinema poster pastiches of imaginary movies from different genres, and a short film Colourful Journey, which will be screened in a pop-up cinema in Gallery 3. Based in a region that has not had a functioning cinema since the 1980s and heavily relies on satellite TV and illegal DVD copies, the works strongly reflect the twins’ irrevocable passion for film.
In A Space Exodus (2009), Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour adapts a segment of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, providing it with a new regional context by positing the idea of the first Palestinian in space. Originally developed as part of the A Space Exodus installation, Subversion will also feature the UK premiere of Sansour’s Palestinauts (2010) and three preliminary sketches for the Nation Estate project, a sci-fi photo series conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for nationhood at the UN.
Other highlights include Sharif Waked’s To Be Continued (2009), which suspends our disbelief, merging suicide bomber with Scheherazade to poke fun at the forms of address that the mainstream media has conditioned audiences into. Marwa Arsanios uses noirish humour to rewrite the hidden romantic and erotic history between men in Lebanon, and Akram Zaatari presents two poetic tales that aim to resolve issues of sexual identity, separation and longing.
Visitors are also invited to take part in Wafaa Bilal’s interactive video game Virtual Jihadi (2009), in which the artist has hacked the Al Qaeda version of the widely marketed ‘Quest for Saddam/The Night of Bush Capturing’.
Curated by Omar Kholeif
Artists
Marwa Arsanios
Sherif El-Azma
Wafaa Bilal
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
Khaled Hafez
Larissa Sansour
Tarzan and Arab
Sharif Waked
Akram Zaatari
Funded by Manchester City Council, Arts Council England and AGMA.
Media Partner: Contemporary Practices. Resource areas curated by 98 Weeks.
Symposium
On 13 April 2012, Cornerhouse presents a symposium entitled The New Arab: Art and Culture from the ‘Imagined’ Arab World, which provides a rare opportunity to hear from global experts on arts and culture in and of the Arab world. Using Subversion as a starting point, guests and speakers are invited to consider parallels between the ironies associated with the politics of history and representation. Chaired by Omar Kholeif.
Contemporary Arab and Lebanese Cinema
A unique film programme of contemporary Arab and Lebanese cinema programmed to accompany Subversion. Including films from a generation of filmmakers whose memories of The Lebanese Civil War remain omnipresent, including Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Rania Stephan, Georges Hachem, Nadine Labaki, and a UK Premiere from Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, the season highlights some of the most critically acclaimed films recently produced in the Arab region.
Season supported by The University of Manchester and British Academy International Partnerships with the curatorial collaboration of the Arab Film Festival, Liverpool.
Manifesta 9
The Deep of the Modern.
Contemporary and Historical Art in Dialogue with Heritage
2 June–30 September 2012
Preview: 31 May–1 June 2012
Official Opening: 1 June 2012, 6 pm
Public Opening: 2 June 2012
Manifesta 9 Venue: former coal-mine of Waterschei, Genk, Limburg, Belgium
Manifesta 9, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, will take place from June 2 until September 30, 2012 in the former Waterschei coal-mining complex in the city of Genk, Limburg (Belgium), under the direction of curator Cuauhtémoc Medina (Mexico) and co-curators Katerina Gregos (Greece) and Dawn Ades (United Kingdom).
The Deep of the Modern intends to create a complex dialogue between different layers of art and history. Its point of departure is the geographical location itself. The remains of the Waterschei mine in Genk, Limburg, which comprise the main venue of Manifesta 9, are not the only protagonists in this story. The Deep of the Modern was perhaps inspired most by the overall geographical-ecological “mining machine” that transformed the region over the course of the 20th century, giving rise to a complex landscape of garden cities, landscape planning, canals, roads and railroads.
The Deep of the Modern will be developed in three sections.
I. Poetics of Restructuring consists of contributions from 39 contemporary artists, focusing on aesthetic responses to the worldwide “economic restructuring” of the productive system in the early 21st century.
II. The Age of Coal presents artworks from 1800 to the early 21st Century about the history of art produced with a direct aesthetic relationship to the industrial era. 17 Tons explores the cultural production derived from shared memory, and those traits that unify the many people influenced by coal-mining, traversing the Campine region of Limburg, and elsewhere in Europe.
III. The heritage section 17 Tons consists of 17 small exhibitions, scattered throughout the exhibition as an archipelago. It is a series of collaborations between individuals and institutions who, although coming from many different disciplines and social strata, continue to activate the collective memory and to preserve both the material and immaterial heritage of coal-mining. The title of the show refers to the well-known anthem of coal miners from around the world (16 Tons recorded by Mere Travis in 1946), the title of one of the most famous installations by Marcel Duchamp (Seventeen miles, 1942), and our aim to suggest the need to step beyond the present-day interpretation of how memory and artistic practices refer back to the coal-mining industry.
Curator Cuauhtémoc Medina: “Memory is inscribed on the surface of a photograph, whether of a lover or an employee. It resides in the heft of a pneumatic pick, and accrues in the callous on an experienced embroiderer’s index finger. It lies coiled in the smell of a prayer mat, as well as in the prescribed sequence of gestures that would bring one’s nose close enough to breathe it in.”
The publication accompanying Manifesta 9 is being devised to encompass both the fragmentary and larger arguments proposed by the curators, to break from the mould of the exhibition catalogue. It suggests the form of an encyclopedia, as a reference book and as a record of the research processes behind the biennial.
The press and professional accreditation request form for the Manifesta 9 Preview Days on May 31 and June 1, 2012, is now available online on www.manifesta9.org.
For more information, please contact: Kathrin Luz, Head of Communication, Manifesta 9, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Upcoming events – The Oslo Project – Kunsthall Oslo
Kunsthall Oslo has invited artists to investigate the city of Oslo and present their results to the public over a seven-month series of exhibitions, talks and events. With a central focus on the material reality of the city and on the present day, the artists' projects explore many sides of city life: aesthetics, ideology, architecture, economics, social relations, history, politics, conflict, everyday life and personal experience.
Upcoming events:
April 2nd 19.00:
Romanes language symposium
The Norwegian Roma Embassy, Tullinløkka.
Authors Linda Gabrielsen and Hanne Ramsdal (Norwegian - Romanes phrasebook),
Steffan Palleson (Swedish - Romanes dictionary), Jamanda Jansen.
The Norwegian Roma Embassy is a temporary cultural house at Tullinløkka in Oslo. The embassy will serve as a site for cultural events in the period 25 March to the International Roma Day on April 8th. The project is initiated by the architect group FFB.
For further information see www.dennorskeromambassade.tumblr.com
April 4-7, 14–15.30:
Romanes writing workshop
Linda Gabrielsen and Hanne Ramsdal are arranging a series of writing workshops for children, both Norwegian- and Romanes-speaking, and working towards the publication of a Norsk-Romanes phrasebook. Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.
April 10th-27th:
Atelier Populaire Oslo
On the initiative of the artist Andrea Lange, Kunsthall Oslo will operate as a workshop and forum for public discussion, artistic production, research and activism in relation to the situation of 'paperless' people in Norway. The workshop is organised in cooperation with the members of the Palestina camp in Oslo, Johanna Zwaig and Marius von der Fehr. Over fifty artists, writers, activists and experts will contribute to a series of talks and events, and the workshop will be open to the public throughout its duration.
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