Politics]]> Activism]]> Kirsten Han]]> Southeast Asia]]> Activism]]> Politics]]> Kirsten Han]]> Video]]> Southeast Asia]]> Displacement]]> Migration]]> Identity]]> Politics]]>
7.00pm Lecture: Aggressive Humanism by Thilda Rosenfeld, Center for Political Beauty The Center for Political Beauty (ZPS), active since 2009, is an art collective based in Germany that combines performance and human rights activism. In this presentation, ZPS member Thilda Rosenfeld will convey the main ideas behind the Center’s initiatives and introduce three projects in detail. Their interventions focus mainly on genocides, migrant rights, and political apathy. Founder Philipp Ruch understands why some consider their work controversial: where people are expecting fiction, they encounter reality.

8.00pm Screening and Q&A: Wonderland, Erkan Özgen, 2016, 3 min 54 sec A deaf-mute boy called Muhammed uses gestures and sounds to describe the experiences his family went through when escaping the war. Muhammed’s home city Kobanî in the Kurdish area of Syria at the border of Turkey became famous in 2015 when it was besieged by jihadist organisation Isis. After long battles, Kobanî managed to become liberated, but thousands of Kurds were forced to leave their homes. The wordless story by the 13-year-old Muhammed is a powerful statement against war, captured on video.

8.20pm Lecture: Insurrection, Resurrection, Lamentation—the role of the arts in confronting our failed normality by Peter Schumann, Founder, Bread and Puppet Theatre

9.20pm Roundtable: Kirsten Han, Nursyazwani Jamaludin, Dima Mabsout, moderated by Mohammad Golabi

10.00pm Screening and Q&A: Now: End of the Season, Ayman Nahle, 2015, 20 min Documentary détournement on the state of the Syrian crisis. The film pictures the everyday entanglement of refugees, tourists, and passersby in the Turkish seaport town of Izmir, where a sense of limbo and standstill looms as illegalised migrants await departure to the unknown. The soundtrack to the film is from a phone call by Hafez al-Assad to Ronald Reagan made some thirty years earlier. A caller on hold, an impatient translator… In Nahle’s words, “more confused than ever, the world is on the edge, showing the disoriented face of a smiling disaster.”

The Assembly Chronicles of Displacement is an online gathering to address urgent issues of our time, explore alternative futures, and discuss and share knowledges and practices, facilitating international and transdisciplinary conversations on displacement and forced migration. Through a series of public talks and conversations alongside screenings, the Assembly will reflect on the outcomes of prior workshops (led by Jonas Staal and Bread and Puppet Theater) and further the discussion on the intersection of art discourses and socio-political activism. Although entirely online, the Assembly’s base is in Singapore and Southeast Asia where many of the participants are from, and will focus on border politics, ethics of documentation in conflict zones and refugee camps, as well as the euphemisms and government rhetoric used around forced migration, which in the ASEAN region is referred to as “irregular migration.” With contributions by: Shahidul Alam (Bangladesh), Bodies of Power / Power for Bodies (Sanne Oorthuizen and Alec Steadman) with Mumtaz Khan Chopan (Indonesia), Bread and Puppet Theater (United States), Center for Political Beauty (Germany), Kin Chui (Singapore), Kirsten Han (Singapore), Nursyazwani Jamaludin (Singapore/United States), Stefan Kruse Jørgensen (Denmark), Raeesah Khan (Singapore), Dima Mabsout (Lebanon), Ayman Nahle (Lebanon), Erkan Özgen (Turkey), Alfian Sa’at (Singapore), and Jonas Staal (Netherlands). Mf D’s inaugural Assembly is hosted and supported by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. About Mf D The Museum for the Displaced is a cultural and social organisation addressing issues of forced migration, displacement, and statelessness. Its programme, unfolding over multiple geographies and contexts, aims to renew possibilities of solidarity and the demand of fundamental rights for disenfranchised groups of displaced people in situations of risk and distress. Through art, critical discourse, and action, we aim to address and bring attention to issues of forced migration, displacement, border politics, and intercultural identities, developing a trans-local network and community. Mf D was founded in 2019 and is collectively curated by Canan Batur, Mohammad Golabi, Leong Min Yu Samantha, and Ana Sophie Salazar.]]>
Thilda Rosenfeld]]> Erkan Ögzan]]> Peter Schumann]]> Kirsten Han]]> Hursyazwani Jamaludin]]> Dima Mambsout]]> Mohammad Golabi ]]> Video]]> Asia]]> Middle East]]> Europe]]>
Displacement]]> Migration]]> Chronicles of Displacement is an online gathering to address urgent issues of our time, explore alternative futures, and discuss and share knowledges and practices, facilitating international and transdisciplinary conversations on displacement and forced migration. Through a series of public talks and conversations alongside screenings, the Assembly will reflect on the outcomes of prior workshops (led by Jonas Staal and Bread and Puppet Theater) and further the discussion on the intersection of art discourses and socio-political activism.

Although entirely online, the Assembly’s base is in Singapore and Southeast Asia where many of the participants are from, and will focus on border politics, ethics of documentation in conflict zones and refugee camps, as well as the euphemisms and government rhetoric used around forced migration, which in the ASEAN region is referred to as “irregular migration.”

With contributions by:

Shahidul Alam (Bangladesh), Bodies of Power / Power for Bodies (Sanne Oorthuizen and Alec Steadman) with Mumtaz Khan Chopan (Indonesia), Bread and Puppet Theater (United States), Center for Political Beauty (Germany), Kin Chui (Singapore), Kirsten Han (Singapore), Nursyazwani Jamaludin (Singapore/United States), Stefan Kruse Jørgensen (Denmark), Raeesah Khan (Singapore), Dima Mabsout (Lebanon), Ayman Nahle (Lebanon), Erkan Özgen (Turkey), Alfian Sa’at (Singapore), and Jonas Staal (Netherlands).

Mf  D’s inaugural Assembly is hosted and supported by NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.

Programme

 

Saturday, 28 November 2020 

7.00pm
Lecture: Aggressive Humanism by Thilda Rosenfeld, Center for Political Beauty
The Center for Political Beauty (ZPS), active since 2009, is an art collective based in Germany that combines performance and human rights activism. In this presentation, ZPS member Thilda Rosenfeld will convey the main ideas behind the Center’s initiatives and introduce three projects in detail. Their interventions focus mainly on genocides, migrant rights, and political apathy. Founder Philipp Ruch understands why some consider their work controversial: where people are expecting fiction, they encounter reality. 

8.00pm
Screening and Q&A: Wonderland, Erkan Özgen, 2016, 3 min 54 sec
A deaf-mute boy called Muhammed uses gestures and sounds to describe the experiences his family went through when escaping the war. Muhammed’s home city Kobanî in the Kurdish area of Syria at the border of Turkey became famous in 2015 when it was besieged by jihadist organisation Isis. After long battles, Kobanî managed to become liberated, but thousands of Kurds were forced to leave their homes. The wordless story by the 13-year-old Muhammed is a powerful statement against war, captured on video.

8.20pm
Lecture: Insurrection, Resurrection, Lamentation—the role of the arts in confronting our failed normality by Peter Schumann, Founder, Bread and Puppet Theatre

9.20pm
Roundtable: Kirsten Han, Nursyazwani Jamaludin, Dima Mabsout, moderated by Mohammad Golabi

10.00pm
Screening and Q&A: Now: End of the Season, Ayman Nahle, 2015, 20 min
Documentary détournement on the state of the Syrian crisis. The film pictures the everyday entanglement of refugees, tourists, and passersby in the Turkish seaport town of Izmir, where a sense of limbo and standstill looms as illegalised migrants await departure to the unknown. The soundtrack to the film is from a phone call by Hafez al-Assad to Ronald Reagan made some thirty years earlier. A caller on hold, an impatient translator… In Nahle’s words, “more confused than ever, the world is on the edge, showing the disoriented face of a smiling disaster.”

 

Sunday, 29 November 2020

7.00pm
Lecture: Stateless Assembly by Jonas Staal
Artist Jonas Staal founded his artistic and political organisation New World Summit in 2012. Ever since, he has developed alternative parliaments for stateless and blacklisted organisations, amongst others in collaboration with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation UNPO (Brussels, 2014) and the Autonomous Administration of North and West Syria (Dêrik/Eindhoven, 2015-18). Can we understand statelessness not only a term that signifies a condition of exclusion, but also as a precondition for liberating democratic practices from the state? Building on the theories of revolutionary Abdullah Öcalan, Staal will discuss his own projects as well as that of artists that are part of stateless movements, in order to explore unstated practices of art and culture. He will expand this exploration also in the field of ecologies of non-human comradeship, through his recent Interplanetary Species Society (2019).

8.00pm
Roundtable: Bodies of Power/ Power for Bodies, Mumtaz Khan Chopan, Kin Chui, moderated by Ana Sophie Salazar

8.40pm
Screening and Q&A: The Migrating Image, Stefan Kruse Jørgensen, 2018, 28 min 
By following a fictional group of refugees across Europe, the film questions the production of images surrounding real-life tragedies. Each segment of the film takes its cue from the destination of the refugees, from FRONTEX depicting the refugees on the Mediterranean Sea, to a photojournalistic reportage from a warehouse in Belgrade. Where do all these images about refugees come from? How do they reshape the geography of Europe?

9.20pm
Roundtable: Shahidul Alam, Raeesah Khan, Alfian Sa’at, moderated by Canan Batur

]]>
Shahidul Alam]]> Bodies of Power/Power for Bodies]]> Mumtaz Khan Chopan]]> Bread and Puppet Theater]]> Center for Political Beauty ]]> Kin Chui ]]> Kirsten Han ]]> Nursyazwani Jamaludin ]]> Stefan Kruse Jørgensen]]> Raeesah Khan]]> Dima Mabsout]]> Ayman Nahle]]> Erkan Özgen]]> Alfian Sa’at]]> Jonas Staal ]]> Asia]]>
Technology]]>
Building upon the NTU CCA Singapore’s research theme Climates. Habitats. Environments. and IdeasCity’s exploration of the role of art and culture beyond the walls of the museum, IdeasCity Singapore’s residency and public program will examine the urgency of solidarity structures in negating climate change and its impact on Southeast Asia and communities worldwide.]]>
Kirsten Han]]> Southeast Asia]]>
Climate Crisis]]> Ecology]]> Sustainability]]> NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and the New Museum are pleased to announce participants and collaborators for the second edition of the NTU CCA Ideas Fest, IdeasCity Singapore, guest-curated by IdeasCity, taking place in Singapore and across Southeast Asia from February 15 to 22, 2020.

Building upon the NTU CCA Singapore’s research theme Climates. Habitats. Environments. and IdeasCity’s exploration of the role of art and culture beyond the walls of the museum, IdeasCity Singapore’s residency and public program will examine the urgency of solidarity structures in negating climate change and its impact on Southeast Asia and communities worldwide.

Twenty practitioners have been selected from an international open call for the residency program at the NTU CCA Singapore to develop independent research at the intersection of art and ecology. Throughout the residency, participants will engage in workshops and lectures presented by local artists, practitioners, and community leaders, including Heman ChongLynette ChuaDrama BoxCharles LimZarina Muhammad, and Post-Museum, along with organizations such as New NaratifThe ProjectorSingapore Community Radiosoft/WALLS/studs, and The Substation.

Residency Fellows include: Francisco Brown (United States), Jane Chang Mi (United States), Kar-men Cheng (Singapore), Lingying Chong (Singapore), Chloe C. Chotrani (Philippines/Singapore), Calvin Chua (Singapore), Fataah T. Dihaan (United States), ila (Singapore), Heider Ismail (Singapore), Lily Kwong (United States), Clarissa Ai Ling Lee (Malaysia), Michelle Lai (Singapore), Kwan Q Li (Hong Kong), Angela Mayrina (Indonesia/United Kingdom), John Kenneth Paranada (Philippines/United Kingdom), Patricia Sayuri (Japan/Brazil), Pen Sereypagna (Cambodia), Shahmen Suku (Singapore/Australia), Ruby Thiagarajan (Singapore), Dat Vu (Vietnam), Nikan Wasinondh (Bow) (Thailand) and Jason Wee (Singapore). For more information please visit: http://www.ideas-city.org.

On February 22, 2020 at NTU CCA Singapore, IdeasCity Singapore will present and broadcast a series of dialogues between local and international artists and community leaders on topics including food sovereignty (Angela Dimayuga and Emeka Ogboh), underground archives (Heman Chong and Monica Narula of Raqs Media Collective), image and power (Ho Rui An and Shumon Basar), ecofeminism (Marwa Arsanios), and traces of migration (Kunlé Adeyemi, Eleena Jamil, Bouchra Khalili and Alfian Sa’at). A sequence of debate circles will examine the roles of solidarity and speculation in addressing climate injustice, featuring interdisciplinary perspectives from speakers such as Becca D’Bus, Kirsten Han, Prasoon Kumar and Zarina Muhammad.

Workshops and conversations facilitated by Bakudapan Food Study Group and a presentation of new VR work by artist Rindon Johnson will invite select audiences to engage directly with artists envisioning pathways to equitable and sustainable futures. The programme will also feature screenings, showings, and remarks by performance artist ila and Digital Minister of Taiwan, Audrey Tang.

Responding to the context of climate crisis, in which artists, activists, and scholars around the world are working today, IdeasCity Singapore will include a series of programmes across Southeast Asia in collaboration with The Forest Curriculum and Nomina Nuda (Los Baños, Philippines), Malaysia Design Archive (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), House of Natural Fiber (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), The Land (Chiang Mai, Thailand),  Sàn Art (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (Boston, United States).

Facilitated by IdeasCity and workshopped at NTU CCA Singapore with an advisory council of Singaporean community members whose work exemplifies equitable practices, a community agreement was developed that details best practices for achieving an accountable, sustainable, and authentic collaboration in Singapore.

Programme on 22 February 2020 
10.00am
Start and Finish by Ute Meta Bauer and Vere van Gool
10.15am
Dialogues by Shumon Basar and Ho Rui An on capitalism and the extreme self
11.00am
Lecture by Kirsten Han on emergent medias and speech
11.20am
Film screening by ila
12.00pm
Presentation by Heman Chong on archives as commons
12.15pm
Lecture Screening by Marwa Arsanios on ecofeminism and community
1.00pm
Presentation by Monica Narula on submarine horizons
1.30pm
Performance by Radha “Midnight Masala”
1.55pm
Hologram lecture by Audrey Tang
2.00pm
Conversation between Becca D’Bus and Fellows on solidarity with nature
3.00pm
Discussion by Shumon Basar, Heman Chong, Vere van Gool, Charles Lim, and Zarina Muhammad on sovereignty and indigenous contexts
4.00pm
Lecture by Emeka Ogboh on food diasporas
4.15pm
Reading by Alfian Sa’at on the poetics of migration
4.30pm
Presentations by House of Natural Fiber and the Land Foundation on strategies for combatting climate change
5.00pm
Video Presentation by Angela Dimayuga on culture and cookbooks
5.10pm
Discussion by Ute Meta Bauer, Vanessa Ho, and Prasoon Kumar on trust networks and sustainability
6.00pm
Kitchen Mapping Workshop by Bakudapan Food Study Group
6.30pm
VR Demo by Rindon Johnson on speculative futures
7.00pm
Roundtable by Fellows
7.45pm
Live Music by Bani Haykal
8.00pm
Lecture Screenings by Kunlé Adeyemi, Eleena Jamil, and Bouchra Khalili on the poetics of migration
10.00pm
Start and Finish by Ute Meta Bauer and Vere van Gool

NTU CCA Ideas Fest 2020 is guest-curated by IdeasCity, New Museum, New York.

]]>
Heman Chong]]> Lynette Chua]]> Drama Box]]> Charles Lim]]> Zarina Muhammad]]> Post-Museum]]> New Naratif]]> The Projector]]> Singapore Community Radio]]> soft/WALLS/studs]]> The Substation]]> Francisco Brown]]> Jane Chang Mi]]> Kar-men Cheng]]> Lingying Chong]]> Chloe C. Chotrani]]> Calvin Chua]]> Fataah T. Dihaan]]> ila]]> Heider Ismail]]> Lily Kwong]]> Clarissa Ai Ling Lee]]> Michelle Lai]]> Kwan Q Li]]> Angela Mayrina]]> John Kenneth Paranada]]> Patricia Sayuri]]> Pen Sereypagna]]> Shahmen]]> Ruby Thiagarajan]]> Dat Vu ]]> Suku]]> Nikan Wasinondh]]> Jason Wee]]> Ho Rui An]]> Shumon Basar]]> Angela Dimayuga]]> Emeka Ogboh]]> Monica Narula]]> Marwa Arsanios]]> Kunlé Adeyemi]]> Eleena Jamil]]> Bouchra Khalili]]> Alfian Sa’at]]> Becca D’Bus]]> Kirsten Han]]> Prasoon Kumar ]]> Ute Meta Bauer]]> Ideas City]]> Vere Van Gool]]> Bani Haykal]]> Rindon Johnson]]> Bakudapan Food Study Group]]> Vanessa Ho]]> House of Natural Fiber]]> Land Foundation]]> Audrey Tang]]> Radha]]> Southeast Asia]]>