thismightnotwork

[thismightnotwork]

De-WESTOXIFICATION STUDY GROUP 2022

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Focusing on De-Westoxification (Weststruckness/Occidentosis/Gharbzadegi غرب‌زدگی). We will read stuff from Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Fayez Sayegh’s Zionist Colonialism in Palestine. As well as, CIA intervention in Asia and Africa and its relation to the Capitalist culture (money laundry) industry. Plus some other basic anti-imperialist texts. Planning to do this study group for 3 months only. FIRST MEETING Sunday 21st at 8 am Seattle time. Some people are joining from Europe and the Middle East so that seems to be the best time for now. We can change it in the future. Here is the suggested reading list:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XTnS18BcV1-Wj3BlNX5V2vdrPFgeeMY9/view?usp=sharing

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The Selected Works of Edward Said, 1966 – 2006

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Originally published as The Edward Said Reader, this is a new edition from Vintage with a preface by Maryam Said, Edward Said’s wife. It is a chunky book that has about 600 pages. The collection is selected from Said’s earliest works to his posthumously published works in 2006. Even though I have read several books by Said, reviewing this book gave me another angle to Edward Said’s great oeuvre. Said’s work had a long-lasting impact not only on a range of different academic discourses but on our current struggles for social justice. Although the publication of Orientalism can be traced as the point of origin for postcolonial discourse within the Western academy, there have been many other BIPoC postcolonial intellectuals prior to Said. From both the global south and transatlantic region, people such as Ibrahim Abu Lughod, Talal Asad, Aimé Césaire, and Frantz Fanon have contributed to the liberationist struggles of black, brown and indigenous peoples against the colonizers. And as we know, despite the invention of these theories, the European settlers have not left the colonized lands as the famous quote of Bobbi Sykes suggests: “What? Post-colonialism? Have they left?” (1)

Said’s background was in literary criticism. He taught English literature at Columbia University. He was also an accomplished piano player. At the end of his life, Said co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim. Together they also authored the book ”Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society”, a collection of their conversations and public discussions about music. Aside from his academic career, Said was also active politically and was a member of the Palestinian National Council (PNC).

”The critical study of the politics of representation does not simply ask whether the subaltern as Gayatri Spivak famously explored, can speak, but what makes them sing.” (2)

(Selection from ‘Orientalism’ by Edward Said)

“England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating—the annihilation of the Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia.” -Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile, ed. David Fernbach (London: Pelican Books, 1973), pp. 306–7

ORIENTALISM AND ITS METHOD

The reason I connect with Said is because of his political genius, and his subtle criticism of Western left especially within the universities. After migrating to the United States and pursuing his studies, he realized that in order to open the conversation about Palestinian liberation and the struggle for self-determination, he has to undo multiple levels of complexity. The first Gordian knot that needed to be untied was the problem of representation. The Middle East similar to the rest of Asia and Africa has been interpreted and represented to the Western audiences by European Orientalists. These academics and scholars perpetuated the pre-established system of domination. The discourse of Oriental studies (which some European countries such as Finland still have) helped pave the way for representing the East to the Western population through a process of racialization. Orientalism itself as an academic discourse became attainable by the military domination over the East. As Said argues on page 74 of the book, “…Orientalism is more particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient than it is as a veridic discourse about the Orient (which is what, in its academic or scholarly form, it claims to be). (2)

Said brought out some uncomfortable topics for the white left inside and outside universities. Certain conversations regarding culture, race, individuality, and representation was considered nothing more than divisive by the established faculty. Suddenly, the middle-class white hippies in the universities had to fight their own whiteness alongside their forefathers’ business model, conservatism or Christianity. The repetitive conversations about capitalism by white folks got complicated considering the relationship between culture and colonial expansion. Part of Said’s work was to expose the overlapping connection between the history of European Anti-Semitism and postcolonial history.

Prior to the publication of Orientalism, the claim that “…every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric”, was something close to fiction. (1) White Leftists (in most cases men) would freely talk about the East with (or without) academic expertise and subsequently represent and translate the East to the Western world.

“Orientalism” and “Culture and imperialism” clarified that European imperialism created a situation where European scientists, artists, missionaries, soldiers, and traders became part of the same system despite their differences. Said talks about the colonial figures who advanced the racialization and subjugation of colonized peoples. Some of these figures are Jewish Zionists, and some are European artists, politicians, and settlers who uphold the colonial projects.

There is a huge list of Orientalist figures which Said brought to light and investigated in his works. The bibliography of Orientalism is digitalized on Goodreads. I cherry-picked one of these racist colonial writings in order to give an example of the type of research Said was digging up. 

Here is Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt-Drake:

“The fear of the fellahin (Middle eastern agricultural laborer) that we have secret designs of re-conquering the country is a fruitful source of difficulty. This got over, remains the crass stupidity which cannot give a direct answer to a simple question, the exact object of which it does not understand; for why should a Frank wish to know the name of an insignificant wady or hill in their land?” The fellahin are all in the worst type of humanity that I have come across in the east…The fellah is totally destitute of all moral sense…“ (2)

(Thomas Tyrwhitt-Drake, 1845, painted by William Barraud (1810–1850), source: Artnet)

“PALESTINE AND POLITICS OF MIDDLE EAST”

Aside from theoretical concepts we also learn a lot about the history of ethnic cleansing and atrocities that has been inflicted on the Middle East and in particular to Palestinians. We also come across many existential events such as the battle of Karameh in 1968, or the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps massacre in Lebanon which resulted in 2,062 deaths, or the events of 1948 where United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 called for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. On page 34 of the book, after dismissing the passive idea that the colonialism of Palestine has resulted from a conflictual tragedy between two cultures/religions, Said goes to detail in explaining why the international left didn’t have much to offer Palestinians in 1967.

(Haganah fighters expel Palestinians from Haifa. May 12, 1948 -AFP/Getty Images)

Bib.

1. Smith, L.T. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London : Zed Books, 2012. 2. Said, Edward W. The Selected Works of Edward Said, 1966 - 2006. s.l. : Vintage, 2019. 0525565310. 3. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. s.l. : Vintage Books Edition, 1979.

❦❦❦ *Currently we have a media studio with a lot of expenses. We are independently critical without any state funding, and your support allows us to continue. If you like the content and want to become part of our community, please consider supporting us on Patreon or make a one-time donation through Paypal. 🙏  ❦❦❦

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The Carpet Performance

  19.01.2019 – 20.01.2019 @Kirkkopuistikko 20, FI-65100 Vaasa, Suomi

  “The state has its areas of performance; so has the artist. While the state performs power, the power of the artist is solely in the performance.” – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

“…What I have tried to do is a kind of geographical inquiry into historical experience, and I have kept in mind the idea that the earth is in effect one world, in which empty, uninhabited spaces virtually do not exist. Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.” -Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism

  In the book “Wars and Capital”, radical orthodox-Marxist writer Maurizio Lazzarato attacks the liberalism of John Locke and his support of slavery. By using this 17th-century example, he is constructing a case that centrism (the equivalent of today’s conflicts of subjectivity) is the secret motor of liberal governmentality. What Lazzarato is neglecting is not class consciousness but the fact that what constitutes an abolitionist position in the West, is not the race-blindness of homo oeconomicus but is a consciousness of race, culture and colonialism.

The Carpet Performance is an exercise of togetherness to gain consciousness toward eastern cultures and histories with an anti-Eurocentric method which opens new possibilities in human understanding, rather than the simplistic binary opposition. The event is a night of music, screening and performance made by a group of Helsinki-based artists. The work is dedicated to Ibn Battūta a 14th-century traveler. The inspiration of the events is coming from the concept of the primacy of geography, travels of Ibn Battuta, the historiography of Ibn Khaldun and music of Hayedeh. The reading group will have a conversation over the breakfast after the performance night which is open to the public.

The New Space is an initiative by Filmverkstaden and Platform, and generously supported by Svenska Kulturfonden, Taike, Svensk Österbottniska Samfundet, Kulturösterbotten and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

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Participating Artists: Hami Bahadori Jo Kjaergaard Suva Gökçe Sandal Arash Akhlaghi Anders Jani Purhonen

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Saturday 19.01.2019 18:00-22:00

Performances Music: Suva, Jo Kjaergaard, Anders Jani Purhonen

Presentation Gökçe Sandal

Film Screening: “The House is Black” (1962 Forough Farrokhzad)

Sunday 20.01.2019 12:00-14:00

Reading Group (with brunch): The Travels of Ibn Battuta (1325-1354) Ibn Khaldun – Muqaddimah Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space

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Jo Kjaergaard and Hami Bahadori are an artist duo, organizer and curator based in Helsinki. They combine theory and practice which is in direct relationship with the geography, politics and the privileges that they behold. Their collaborative and people-centered practice is based on the notion of event, distance, movement, belonging and becoming. Jo has lived and studied in Aarhus, Bogota, and Helsinki. Hami has studied and lived in Iran, Turkey, United States and Finland. Together, they are part of an autonomous reading group called insideanairport that meets in Helsinki International Airport.

  Gökçe Sandal is an MA student of Cultural Studies in the University of Helsinki. Originally from Istanbul, Turkey; she’s been living in Finland for the last two years. She is interested in artistic research, and particularly in socially engaged art and artistic intervention methods. She has been involved in the Socially Responsible Artists and Arts Institutions research group within ArtsEqual, which is a research project coordinated by the University of Arts Helsinki. Within this project, she has co-authored a policy brief on the topic of asylum-seeking on the grounds of artistic persecution and how to integrate the newcomer artists into the Finnish local art scene. During the last few years, she has participated in artist residencies and exhibitions in Sweden and Finland.

  Anders Jani Purhonen whose practice currently revolves around simulation, energetic suspension and formation of meaning is an artist based in Helsinki with a soft spot for contingent art forms. He holds an MA from the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki department of Time & Space. He is the founder of the speculative art space ££, and has been active in Whitecolors, Oksasenkatu11, Mörk, Muu, Taku, montaasi and radio Bekola.

  Suva is working with different aspects of public anatomy – making and doing something with the public. The tools of intervention, interaction, anticipation, perception and the sense of community. He is interested in engaging people to perform, and to have access to collective understanding of the form. He combines the notion of Body and material in his performances. The question of the existence of ‘the Other’ in the space of ‘An-Other’ formed into an important area of his work. His status as an outsider, intermingling through performances and actions in a foreign land, is an important approach, more in the line of hyphen rather than a slash. He combines Music, Visual Art, Bodily writing in his creative process.

  Arash Akhlaghi is an artist, photographer and filmmaker based in Helsinki. His artworks are dealing with repetition in everyday life, juxtaposed to a sense of alienation and anxiety due to isolation. He is a complicated person.

  insideanairport is a study-group consists of people from different backgrounds and cultures who are gathering regularly in Helsinki International Airport. The group is interested in topics related to migration, colonialization/decolonization, subjectivity, violence, surveillance and paranoia.

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Images from the Reading Group conversation Hosted by The New Space (20.01.2019) Artist: Suva

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The Carpet Performance

Date: 19.01.2019 – 20.01.2019 @Kirkkopuistikko 20, FI-65100 Vaasa, Suomi

 “The state has its areas of performance; so has the artist. While the state performs power, the power of the artist is solely in the performance.” – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

“…What I have tried to do is a kind of geographical inquiry into historical experience, and I have kept in mind the idea that the earth is in effect one world, in which empty, uninhabited spaces virtually do not exist. Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.” -Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism

 In the book "Wars and Capital", radical orthodox-Marxist writer Maurizio Lazzarato attacks the liberalism of John Locke and his support of slavery. By using this 17th-century example, he is constructing a case that centrism (the equivalent of today's conflicts of subjectivity) is the secret motor of liberal governmentality. What Lazzarato ignoring is the fact that what constitutes an abolitionist position in the West, is not the race-blind radical socialism/communism but is a consciousness toward race, culture and colonialism.

The Carpet Performance is an exercise of togetherness to gain consciousness toward eastern cultures and histories with an anti-Eurocentric method which opens new possibilities in human understanding, rather than the simplistic binary opposition. The event is a night of music, screening and performance made by a group of Helsinki-based artists. The work is dedicated to Ibn Battūta a 14th-century traveler. The inspiration of the events is coming from the concept of the primacy of geography over time, travels of Ibn Battuta, the historiography of Ibn Khaldun and music of Hayedeh. The reading group will have a conversation over the breakfast after the performance night which is open to the public.

 View Adventures of Ibn Battuta: Anatolia in a larger map Source: AP world Class Weebly (Chehab Kaakarli)

Participating Artists: Jo Kjaergaard Hami Bahadori Suva Gökçe Sandal Arash Akhlaghi Anders Jani Purhonen

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Saturday 19.01.2019  ***18:00 -22:00

Performances Music: Suva, Jo Kjaergaard, Anders Jani Purhonen

Presentation Gökçe Sandal

Film Screening: "The House is Black" (1962 Forough Farrokhzad) "Hayedeh: Legendary Persian Diva" (Documentary) ~ [to be confirmed]

Sunday 20.01.2019 ***12:00 - 14:00

Reading Group (Breakfast):

The Travels of Ibn Battuta (1325-1354)

Ibn Khaldun – Muqaddimah

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space

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TIEDOTUSKESKUS, workshop by “We See You” – Brinkkala Gallery, Turku, Fi  (2018)

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The event is Free The New Space is an initiative by Filmverkstaden and Platform, and generously supported by Svenska Kulturfonden, Taike, Svensk Österbottniska Samfundet, Kulturösterbotten and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

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Poetic Militancy: Theoretical Payback Video

Reading Performance, Music Address: Space for Free Arts, (Vilhonvuorenkuja 15-16, 00500 Helsinki) Date & Time: Friday 01.02.2019  @18:00 – 22:00

Suva Deep Das (music), T̶H̶I̶S̶ ̶W̶O̶R̶K̶S̶ ̶D̶I̶F̶F̶E̶R̶E̶N̶T̶L̶Y̶ Reading Group (facilitation), Inisideanairport (Performance) 

   Theoretical Payback is a collaborative performance where the participants have the chance to militantly theoretically or poetically attack a Eurocentric intellectual or a school of thought that promoted or stayed nurtural toward theoretical racism. Performances are voluntary, one of the performances will be recorded and simultaneously projected at the space. You can pick one thinker, (pseudo-thinker), artist or writer for theoretical payback. Collaboratively we will read and perform our paybacks in two sessions.

The payback can be in form of poetry, music, singing, sounds or other desired methods.

If you wish to remain neutral and don’t participate you can simply come and enjoy the event.

Jo Kjeargaard and Suva will be facilitating the musical, sound and performative paybacks. InsideanAirport reading group (Arash Akhlaghi and Hami Bahadori) will be facilitating the written and poetic paybacks.

 Music Suva Deep Das

Suva is working with different aspects of public anatomy – making and doing something with the public. The tools of intervention, interaction, anticipation, perception and the sense of community. He is interested in engaging people to perform, and to have access to collective understanding of the form. He combines the notion of Body and material in his performances. The question of the existence of ‘the Other’ in the space of ‘An-Other’ formed into an important area of his work. His status as an outsider, intermingling through performances and actions in a foreign land, is an important approach, more in the line of hyphen rather than a slash. He combines Music, Visual Art, Bodily writing in his creative process.

 Wine and snacks are available. The event is FREE of charge, a modest 5€ donation is requested. The event site is wheelchair accessible.

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 Program

18.00 – 20:00 Reading, conversation, and socializing: also time for writing any statements or jam with friends.

20:00 – 20:50 Performance #1 (unrecorded)

21:00 – 22:00 Performance #2 (will be recorded)

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Reading Group

Crime and Criminalization

Date: Sunday 16.12.2018 @18:30 Address: Ex-Club, Merimiehenkatu 36 (call +358417537605)

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Documentation of David Hammons’ 1981 performance “Shoe Tree,” Tribeca, New York City (shown: Richard Serra’s sculpture, T.W.U.). Photo by Dawoud Bey.

Last time we read the Ngugi’s text on Performance space and the review on Talal Asad’s “Suicide Bombing”. However, the discussion became broad and subtractive. This time we continue the same topic but with a focus on traditional European perspective on the idea of political and its violent history. Simultaneously, we review both radical Left and radical Right perspectives in terms of economy the idea of legality and criminality in revolutionary movements.

The theme of the next series of the reading group is “crime and criminalization (by power) and its relationship to art and its collective and communal aspects”. The reading list will focus on the differences between individualism and collectivism. It also reviews the similarities between the operation of artists collectives (culturally, economically and politically) and illegal communities or criminal collectives antagonistic to the hegemonic powers. In an individual level, the position of the artist in contrast to the state is similar to a powerless criminal. As Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o mentioned: “The state has its areas of performance; so has the artist. While the state performs power, the power of the artist is solely in the performance.”

Art has been taking for granted as a privileged device to promote social collectivism and cultural prosperity through imagination and its exceptionalism of anti-market production. Yet this aspect of art has some crucial similarities to the collective and communal idea of organized crime and/or criminalized humans by ideological state apparatuses. At the same time, the fancy and luxurious international zone of the art world with its numerous museums, institutions and biennials are sponsored and often used by big corporations for practicing liberalism, manufacturing consent and sometimes money laundry (Beretta family, Charles Saatchi, Sotheby’s and Christie, etc.)

Within this domain, the differences between “class” and “privilege” become crucial. As Chin-tao Wu research showed in his 2007 “Biennials Without Borders?”, Globalization in the art world is another fancy name for westernization. Malcolm X said in an interview: “Every oppressed people, no matter how neat and humble they are, after you drive them so far, they are going to strike back!” Throughout modern history, there have been always certain artists and artist groups who were -directly or indirectly- criminalized, censored or prohibit by supporting a movement or simply belonging to a certain socioeconomic group. This relationship is in contrast to a social, economical or political power (institutions, corporations, state, the majority, etc.) We will examine the role of art in our controlled political ecosystem with its excessive surveillance and securitization.

“The postcolonial state exhibits similar sensitivities. The collective expression of joy and even grief outside the watchful eyes of the state may, in some instances, constitute a crime. So the postcolonial state tries to enact limitations similar to those of the colonial state. So exile is a way of moving the writer from a territorial confinement, where her acts of resistance might ignite other fields, into a global “exclosure.” -Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

“In 2001, a few weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Whitney Museum of American Art, which was holding its Biennial exhibition of contemporary and cutting-edge art, got a phone call from an unlikely source. An FBI agent was interested in a drawing in the exhibition by the late conceptual artist Mark Lombardi, who had committed suicide the year before. The agent asked to see the drawing, and to obtain a copy of it for the investigation into the attacks.” (Link) Following 9/11, the US government funded two important books about this important event, “9/11 Commission Report” and “Encyclopedia of Terrorism -published by Facts On File”. In contrast to these publications, Verso published a book entirely made from speeches and letters of Osama bin, edited by Bruce B. Lawrence. Simoiultaunously, Patricia Goldstone wrote about Lombardi exposing Harken Energy, Arbusto Energy, BCCI, First American bank, the Bush dynasty and their close financial connection to American, Europan and middle eastern terrorist organizations, money laundry, and illegal banking.crime and criminalization.

Reading materials for the session:

Richard Wolin, Introduction: Answer to the Question: What Is Counter-Enlightenment?

David Castriota, feminizing the barbarian and barbarizing the feminine

Erik De Vries, Alexandre Kojeve-Carl Schmitt Correspondence and Alexandre Kojeve, “Colonialism from a European Perspective”

Supplementary Readings:

Amiri Baraka “Revolutionary Theatre”

The Right to Maim, Review of Jaspir Puar’s 2017 book

Link to Download texts (Changing each time)

Date: Sunday 16.12.2018 @18:30 Address: Ex-Club, Merimiehenkatu 36 (call +358417537605)

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We are open to collaboration and joint projects. The reading conversations are usually carried on collectively. We are not reading the selected texts during the meetings, but focusing on the conversation about the subject. The topic of each month’s reading varies based on collective interest. We are reading books, essays, and other materials in topics regarding contemporary art studies, politics, philosophy, criticism, poetry, etc. If you would like to join, just come in (free and open to all). Feel free to bring your friends.

[thismightnotwork]

Reading Group

Culture and Imperialism  Date: Friday 17.08.2018, at 14:00 Address: Pyhän Birgitan puisto (call hami if you can’t find +358417537605)

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In the last meeting, we read the first part of Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism. For the next reading, we will review the second chapter of Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism. Published in 1994, many years after his iconic work Orientalism, the book examines the intersections of culture (art, literature, films, etc.) and Empire. This reading will be a precursor for reading Shahram Khosravi's talk in Helsinki.

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Reading materials:

Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (Chapter 2)

Ibn Warraq, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism

Supplementary Readings:

Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism: A Symposium (Bruce Robbins; Mary Louise Pratt; Jonathan Arac; R. Radhakrishnan; Edward Said)

Shahram Khosravi, The ‘illegal’ traveler: an auto-ethnography of borders

Link to Download texts (Changing each time)

links:

Thinking through Racisms conversation: Haus der Kulturen der Welt

Maryam Monalisa Gharavi - Face/Less: Human, Inhuman, Abhuman

Announcements:

Ravelling Enunciations // Timothy Jude Smith at Third Space

Bahadori / Holmström / Hyrri / Majander / Meriläinen at Galleria Lapinlahti

Public talk by Shahram Khosravi: How Does it Feel to be a Crisis?

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Date: Friday 17.08.2018, at 14:00 Address: Pyhän Birgitan puisto (call hami if you can’t find +358417537605)

The Palestinian band Al-Anqaa play in the ruins of the cultural centre (MEE/Mohammed Asad) (link)

✳︎ ✳︎ ✳︎

We are open to collaboration and joint projects. The reading conversations are usually carried on collectively. We are not reading the selected texts during the meetings, but focusing on the conversation about the subject. The topic of each month’s reading varies based on the collective interest. If you would like to join, just come in (free and open to all).

[thismightnotwork]

How To Build a Wall: Introduction into Art

Date: 24.08.2018 – 16.09.2018 Exhibition Laboratory (Merimiehenkatu 36, 00150 Helsinki)

Exhibition Opening: Thursday, August 23, 2018 @17:00 – 22:00

  “it is not just bodies that are orientated. Spaces also take shape by being orientated around some bodies, more than others. We can also consider ‘institutions’ as orientation devices, which take the shape of ‘what’ resides within them.” -Sara Ahmed – A phenomenology of Whiteness (2007)

“…nations themselves are narrations. The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them.” -Edward W. Said. Culture and Imperialism (1994)

“Walls built around political entities cannot block out without shutting in, cannot secure without making securitization a way of life, cannot define an external “they” without producing a reactionary “we,” even as they also undermine the basis of that distinction.” -Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (2010)

“to regard society as one single subject is, in addition, to look at it wrongly; speculatively”  -Karl Marx, Grundrisse (1857)

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How To Build a Wall: Introduction into Art is an exhibition and group project visiting intersections of ‘art production’ and ‘cultural dominance through exclusionary methods’. Inspired by Edward Said’s culture and imperialism the project will incorporate the relationship between: history and structure, structure and space, space and bodies. The artist group will also host a number of events and performances at the opening, and later during the exhibition. There will be a public talk by the acclaimed social anthropologist Shahram Khosravi on 04.09.2018.

Participants: Hami Bahadori Jo Kjaergaard Riikka Theresa Innanen Suva Deep Das Seham Hamuti Arash Akhlaghi

Screenings: Hami Bahadori Arash Akhlaghi

 /// 23.08.2018 @19:00 Performance: Riikka Theresa Innanen

@20:00 Music Performance: Jo Kjaergaard Seham Hamuti

 /// 04.09.2018  @16:30 Music Performance Suva Deep Das

Suva is working with different aspects of public anatomy – making and doing something with the public. The tools of intervention, interaction, anticipation, perception and the sense of community. He is interested in engaging people to perform, and to have access to collective understanding of the form. He combines the notion of Body and material in his performances. The question of the existence of ‘the Other’ in the space of ‘An-Other’ formed into an important area of his work. His status as an outsider, intermingling through performances and actions in a foreign land, is an important approach, more in the line of hyphen rather than a slash. He combines Music, Visual Art, Bodily writing in his creative process.

 @17:00 Public talk Shahram Khosravi

How Does it Feel to be a Crisis? We live in a time of wall fetishism. Never as today have human beings been so obsessed with building walls. Walls are, however, old. Empires built walls, from the Great Wall of China, to Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England  and the Limes Tripolitanus of the Roman Empire in North Africa to keep “barbarians” out. And if we look closer we can see that there are still traces of the old imperial visions in the modern borders and border walls. In this talk I will look at the connections of wars and walls; walls and empires. I will argue that there is a link between the installation of border walls (here) and the unsettling of communities (there). The current border regime is part of a larger and older project of colonial accumulation by dispossession and expulsion; stealing wealth, labor force, and time. I will also argue that border crossing discloses the cracks in the dominant narration of borders and that travelers without papers denaturalize what are otherwise naturalized borders, politicize what are otherwise depoliticized borders. I will illustrate this argument by following travelers without papers along the railways in the Balkans; tracing Afghan deportees in Kabul; and narrating the social life of the materialities used in the wall between Mexico and the US.

Shahram Khosravi is Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University and the author of the books: Young and Defiant in Tehran, University of Pennsylvania Press (2008); The Illegal Traveler: an auto-ethnography of borders, Palgrave (2010); Precarious Lives: Waiting and Hope in Iran, University of Pennsylvania Press (2017), and After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives, Palgrave (2017, edited volume). He has been an active writer in the Swedish press and has also written fiction.

[thismightnotwork]

Shahram Khosravi

Public talk Date: Tuesday 04.09.2018 @17:00 Exhibition Laboratory (Merimiehenkatu 36, 00150 Helsinki)

Part of  “How To Build a Wall: Introduction into Art” Exhibition

 How Does it Feel to be a Crisis?

We live in a time of wall fetishism. Never as today have human beings been so obsessed with building walls. Walls are, however, old. Empires built walls, from the Great Wall of China, to Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England and the Limes Tripolitanus of the Roman Empire in North Africa to keep “barbarians” out. And if we look closer we can see that there are still traces of the old imperial visions in the modern borders and border walls.

In this talk, I will look at the connections of wars and walls; walls and empires. I will argue that there is a link between the installation of border walls (here) and the unsettling of communities (there). The current border regime is part of a larger and older project of colonial accumulation by dispossession and expulsion; stealing wealth, labour force, and time. I will also argue that border crossing discloses the cracks in the dominant narration of borders and that travellers without papers denaturalize what are otherwise naturalized borders, politicize what are otherwise depoliticized borders. I will illustrate this argument by following travellers without papers along the railways in the Balkans; tracing Afghan deportees in Kabul; and narrating the social life of the materialities used in the wall between Mexico and the US.

 Shahram Khosravi is Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University and the author of the books: Young and Defiant in Tehran, University of Pennsylvania Press (2008); The Illegal Traveler: an auto-ethnography of borders, Palgrave (2010); Precarious Lives: Waiting and Hope in Iran, University of Pennsylvania Press (2017), and After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives, Palgrave (2017, edited volume). He has been an active writer in the Swedish press and has also written fiction.

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Shipwreck Information Center - Turku

#Turku  Programs for today and tomorrow: 

Saturday 14.07.2018 (12:00 – 18:00)

13:30-15:30 • We See You: story sharing caféAhmad Hosseini, Dure Sameen, Linda Bäckman

16:00-17:00 • Omar Albajare, Physical Theater

17:00-18:00 • Research-poetry dialogue on “refugees’ journeys of trust”: Eveliina Lyytinen (Senior Researcher at Migration Institute of Finland) and Ahmed Zaidan (freelance poet-journalist) will present current research, poems, and personal experiences of fleeing and trust.

18:00 • TMNW Reading Group: public conversation, facilitated by Arash Akhlaghi, Gokçe Sandal, Hami Bahadori & Jo Kjaergaard (Outside location)

Sunday 15.07.2018 (12:00 – 18:00) 12:00-18:00 • Sleep concert: Alejandro Montes, Juan De Dios Magdaleno, Jani Purhonen, Jo Kjaergaard (bring your pillow or sleeping bag and stay over for 6 hours)

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Reading Group

Culture and Imperialism  Date: Saturday 14.07.2018, 18:00 Address: Shipwreck Information Center @Turku Brinkkala Gallery

In last reading (which took place in Shelter / Suoja / Убежище Festival), we read the second part of Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh‘s book on Eastern Postmodernism along Foucault’s Security, Territory and Population. The conversation was focused on insurgency, counter-insurgency and history of art in relation to artistic movements and methodologies. We discussed feminist strategies in relation to historic revolutionary and evolutionary (waves) moments. We discussed the effects of artworks of Hito Steyerl, and writings of Sara Ahmed and others.

For the next reading, we will review the first chapter of Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism. Published in 1994, many years after his iconic work Orientalism, the book examines the overlaps of culture (art, literature, films, etc) and Empire. This reading will be a precursor for reading Hamid Dabashi’s Brown Skin, White Masks, and Sherene Razack’s Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics.

The next reading group will take place at Shipwreck Information Center exhibition in Turku’s Brinkkala gallery.

Reading materials:

Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (introduction + Chapter 1)

Supplementary Readings:

Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism: A Symposium (Bruce Robbins; Mary Louise Pratt; Jonathan Arac; R. Radhakrishnan; Edward Said)

Shahram Khosravi, The ‘illegal’ traveler: an auto-ethnography of borders

Link to Download texts (Changing each time)

links:

Thinking through Racisms conversation: Haus der Kulturen der Welt

Maryam Monalisa Gharavi – Face/Less: Human, Inhuman, Abhuman

Announcements:

Shipwreck Information Center

Date: Saturday 14.07.2018, 18:00 Address: Shipwreck Information Center @Turku Brinkkala Gallery

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Cyprus, 2015 by Rayyane Tabet, (photo from Sharje Foundation)

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We are open to collaboration and joint projects. The reading conversations are usually carried on collectively. We are not reading the selected texts during the meetings, but focusing on the conversation about the subject. The topic of each month’s reading varies based on the collective interest. We are reading books, essays, and other materials in topics regarding contemporary art studies, politics, philosophy, criticism, poetry, etc. If you would like to join, just come in (free and open to all). Feel free to bring your friends. ✳︎ ✳︎ ✳︎

[ARCHIVE]

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Shipwreck Information Center

13.07.2018 – 19.08.2018 Opening: 13.07.2018 - 17:00 @Brinkkala Gallery, Turku

The history of shipbuilding and sea transport is entangled with the history of migration. Between the 16th and 18th century, large ships were built to carry people from Africa to Europe and North America for slave-labor and in early 20th century ships were built to carry European migrants across the Atlantic Ocean. Today, in our technological era, large passenger ships are built for tourism and entertainment while small boats such as plastic boats, rafts and lifeboats are used for migration. Turku has a long history in shipbuilding and many of the world’s largest passenger ships, such as MS Oasis of the Seas, are built here. Coincidentally, the only migration institute in Finland is also located in Turku.  

Today, there is a familiarity with the classic and romantic image of migration seen in movies and popular culture or its grim contemporary image seen in the news and social media. The images of forced migration and displacement that we witness today are negative, dark and disturbing. Yet the reality of its aftermath, for the survived subjects who experience the long and dangerous journey is very disturbing. The conversations about migration are often obscured by debates between anti-migration and nationalist voices against human rights activists. The project’s aim is to focus on the reality of migration through art while giving voice to those who are excluded from the conversation.

Shipwreck Information Center is revisiting the conflicting intersection of historical fiction and contemporary reality via different perspectives and interactions. The exhibition and happenings are a result of collaborations between artists, researchers and activists from diverse backgrounds and practices. Focusing on the journey, its cultural aftereffects and fragments, the group will create an environment for audiences to experience the shift from past to present.

The historic element of the project is selected from the archives of Siirtolaisuusinstituutti (Migration Institute of Finland in Turku). Its contemporary aspect was inspired by artists previous projects as well as the new collaboration with Migrant Tales (an online blog from voices of migrants in Finland since 2007) and “We See You” campaign -originated for better asylum politics. The first three days of the exhibition is dedicated to performances, music, poetry and talks by artists from different communities in Helsinki, Turku and Vaasa. The program will be partly in English and partly in Finnish.

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Reading list: 

Arash Abizadeh, Democratic Theory and Border Coercion: No Right to Unilaterally Control Your Own Borders Bridget Anderson, Nandita Sharma, and Cynthia Wright, Editorial: Why No Borders? Shahram Khosravi, The ‘illegal’ traveller: an auto-ethnography of borders Cynthia Wright, History, Memory and Immigration Controls Harsha Walia, Undoing border imperialism (book) Ibn Fadlan, Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness, Arab Travellers in the Far North (book) ENAR shadow report 2015-2016, Racism and discrimination in the context of migration in Europe,  Violence and Subjectivity, Editors: Mamphela Ramphele, Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, Pamela Reynolds (book)

http://www.thismightnotwork.org/shipwreck-information-center/

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Behrooz Bahadori – Works 2018

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Arriving at #Seattle for Red May festival: This year marks the 200 year birthday of Karl Marx. Looking forward to a month of intense readings, discussions, and conversation about contemporary and historical topics on capital and capitalism with a bunch of great writers, artists, activists, and intellectuals.

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Reading Group

​3-Day Collective Reading

Date: 20.10.2018 – 22.10.2018 Location: Vartiosaari, Helsinki

The aim of this project is to exercise a collective reading around the theme of anxiety and conflict. Everyone will choose ONE text, relevant to the theme from their personal preferences and what they are interested in reading. We will read our own individual texts. Everyone can find/create comfortable situations in which they can read. During the three days, we will have short conversations periodically during meals and coffee breaks. As a group, we can choose to talk about readings in the first two days or avoid it until the last day. At the end of the third day, we can have a conversation to share what we have read and what we have learned.

If you are interested to participate let us know. You will bring your own food, drinks, and pillow. We will provide the space and coffee. In order to get to the island, we have to row you over by rowing boats.

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Suggested readings on this topic:

Jan Campbell, Arguing With the Phallus: Feminist, Queer and Postcolonial Theory: A Psychoanalytic Contribution Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus José Esteban Muñoz, Disidentifications Miwon Kwon, One Place after Another Edward Said, Orientalism Edward W. Said, Out of Place Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization Judith Butler, Undoing Gender Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence Aihwa Ong (Editor), Stephen J. Collier (Editor), Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems Édouard Glissant, Poetics of relation Veena Das (Editor), Violence and Subjectivity Veena Das, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary Hannah Arendt, On Violence Langston Hughes, The Ways of White Folks Jin Haritaworn (Editor), Adi Kuntsman (Editor), Silvia Posocco (Editor), Queer Necropolitics Anwar Shaikh, Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia Nisi Shawl, Everfair

(Photo: Vartiosaari, Helsinki)

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#RedMay opening is approaching. Come see the performances, installation, and films this Tuesday 1st of May, at 18:00 at Alkovi #Helsinki @redmayseattle  - image: Redrawing of Gustav Klutsis loudspeaker stands.

RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/2030581837265974/