[spectre] Fight or Flight conf., Amsterdam 4 June 2004

["RenÈe" Ridgway Info]

Fight or Flight, A public debate where the refugee in relationship to 
the artist, marginality and community will be addressed.

Organised in cooperation with the Gate Foundation
Moderator: Sebastian Lopez (AR/NL), director Gate Foundation

Conference:
Friday, June 4 10:00 - 15:00 (doors open at 9:30)
The Society, Arti et Amicitiae, Rokin 112, Amsterdam

Admission: 10 Euro
Including a Turkish lunch, coffee, tea and beverages

Reservations: 
<http://migratingidentity.net/content/e149/index_ger.html>http://migratingidentity.net



Fight or Flight

Conferencing Transmission/Reconstruction

At the beginning of the 21st century, 130 million people are living 
outside of their homeland and every year the number increases by 
120,000. As waves of migration, naturalisation, and social 
(re)forming on micro and macro levels carve deep tracks into 
societies worldwide, Europe attempts to be unified and at the same 
time builds a wall around itself, inhibiting a mutual exchange 
between the native and the immigrant.

A western European framework supposes the possibility of artists 
living in other spaces and places while offering an experience of the 
unknown from the security of a relatively insular position. While the 
focus of much art practice in the last decade has emphasized the 
figure of the nomad, the condition of the refugee is the ever-present 
other to this self-referred 'nomad'.

Conferencing Transmission/Reconstruction will initiate a dialogue 
between the nomadic artist and the experience of the refugee artist, 
concerning in particular the slippages of self, nationality, identity 
that are so characteristic of the current global condition. In 
cooperation with the Gate Foundation, Sebastian Lopez (AR/NL) will 
moderate a series of talks from artists, actors and organisations 
that have personal witness to such topics. By addressing particular 
issues in the Netherlands as well as Europe and abroad, the inside 
personal experience will be turned outwards through a day of dialogue 
and exchange.

Special guests will include:

Krishna Manjit Kaur, performance artist

dramatist and filmmaker, author of the book: Moons, Myths and Marriages

Today there are more than eight billion humans on this planet and the 
percentage that has access to reasonable water, food and shelter is 
twelve to fifteen percent. The nomad is still moving and translating 
his or her experience and is still motivated by the ancient 
reasoning: water, food and shelter. Even when the thread of time has 
given us the opportunity to settle and build civilization we create 
war and destruction in order to keep fear and movement part of our 
experience.

Bright O'Richards, actor

The use of the term western is indicative of the terminology of a 
self-representing territory of modernization and forms of stencil 
that can be transposed freely across the globe characterized by 
tropes of cultural modernity such as westernized and westernism. The 
west therefore is not a place so much as a cultural state of mind. 
Bright O' Richards, a Liberian residing in the Netherlands for the 
past 15 years, has appeared in a wide variety of theatrical projects 
and various cross-cultural interventions and exchanges from a 
primarily African perspective engaging and questioning the west in a 
north/south dialogue.

Sharmila Samant, visual artist

lives and works in Mumbai, co-founder of Open Circle 
<http://www.opencirclearts.org>http://www.opencirclearts.org

ImagineŠ a 14 year old anorexic 'model' sashaying down the ramp in 
one of the four fashion capitals making more money per minute than 
the twelve year old emaciated 'karigar' who will mass produce her 
outfit in one of the Asian sweatshops, making less than the same 
amount per yearŠ

Sharmila Samant is neither a refugee nor a migrant, but who via her 
work HANDPICKED REJECTS (see website 
<http://migratingidentity.net>http://migratingidentity.net) offers a 
powerful critique of the market forces that define cultural practices 
of peripheral nations. Migrants from all over India come to work in 
Mumbai, some of them in these sweatshops. Samant's work deals with 
issues of identity within a global context, particularly looking at 
the homogenising effect of commodification in relation to developing 
economics.

Sebastian Lopez

Sebastian Lopez is director of the Gate Foundation, curator of the 
Shanghai Biennale 2004 and has published numerous articles on 
contemporary art.

Please see <http://migratingidentity.net>http://migratingidentity.net 
for further details about the exhibition and opening hours.

Press contact:
Gili Crouwel
00 31 6 43163313
<mailto:press at migratingidentity.net>press at migratingidentity.net
<http://migratingidentity.net/content/e171/index_ger.html>Download 
latest press release

Guest curators: <http://reneeridgway.net>Renée Ridgway, Simon 
Ferdinando, <http://www.bugsite.dds.nl/concept.htm>Sonja Beijering

Organisation: SEB Foundation, Wilhelminastraat 121-hs, 1054 VB Amsterdam

This project is made possible by the significant support of Arti et 
Amicitiae, Das Arts, de Groot & Klein BV, Duivendrecht, Gate 
Foundation, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Mondriaan Foundation, The 
Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, 
VSBfonds, Hivos, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, and The Amsterdam City 
Council.