Assembly: Chronicles of Displacement Day 1
Dublin Core
Title
Assembly: Chronicles of Displacement Day 1
Description
Saturday, 28 November 2020 Convened online by the Museum for the Displaced
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.
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.
Date
2020-11-28
Contributor
Format
Language
English
Video Item Type Metadata
Video ID
491051556
Collection
Citation
“Assembly: Chronicles of Displacement Day 1,” NTU CCA Singapore Digital Archive, accessed April 27, 2024, https://ntuccasingapore.omeka.net/items/show/3041.
Item Relations
| Item: Assembly: Chronicles of Displacement | Is Referenced By | This Item |