De agenda van Toko staat vol met interessante events en meet ups. Zoals dit rondetafelgesprek over kunstenaars en curatoren die vaak gevangen raken in de kaders van witte instellingen. Wees welkom!
Rondetafelgesprek met Afsaneh Salari, Audrey Leboutte, Sofia Dati and Hari P.A. Sacré
Gemodereerd door Joachim H. Ben Yakoub en Hoda Siahtiri
Locatie: TOKO, Antwerpen
Tijd: 19u – 21u
De discussie wordt in het Engels gehouden
Kunstenaars of curatoren die met hun esthetische praktijktijken de politiek van verschillen aanraken, raken vaak gevangen in verschillende kaders van witte instellingen. Die houden zich met de beste bedoelingen bezig met voortdurende maatschappelijke transformaties. De roep om radicale verandering lijkt te zijn gekaapt in een spel dat nieuwe strategische institutionele kaders bedient – maar kaders die het risico lopen dezelfde verouderde praktijken, structuren en economieën te reproduceren en zo bestaande machtsverhoudingen te versterken. Desalniettemin creëren steeds meer artiesten verschillende methoden en strategieën om te weigeren door deze soms exotische frames op verschillende subversieve manieren te navigeren om het spel te veranderen.
Tijdens het rondetafelgesprek gaan Joachim Ben Yakoub en Hoda Siahtiri hier samen met Afsaneh Salari, Sofia Dati, Audrey Leboutte en Hari P.A. Sacré dieper op in.
ENGLISH VERSION
Refusing the frame, or changing the game
Roundtabel with Afsaneh Salari, Audrey Leboutte, Sofia Dati and Hari P.A. Sacré
Moderated by: Joachim H. Ben Yakoub and Hoda Siahtiri
Location: TOKO, Antwerp
Time: 19h – 21h
The discussion will be held in English
Despite themselves, artists or curators who are engaging an aesthetic praxis that from close or afar touches upon a politics of difference are too often caught in various frames by variegated white institutions, who with the best intentions, engage with ongoing societal transformations. The growing demand for fundamental change has been taken up enthusiastically by these institutions spreading confusion by taking up words, rhetoric and discourses, but too often disembodied, disconnected from the very aesthetic experiences these artists want to facilitate. Art Schools organize workshops, seminars and conferences, art institutions produce festivals and shows on radical practices or decolonization, theaters claim it as an artistic mission in conjunction with intersectionality, and art centers take on, as their own, all sorts of radical concepts as soon as they enter the cultural lexicon. Rallying cries for radical change seem to have been hijacked in a game serving new strategic institutional frames —but frames that risks reproducing the same obsolete practices, structures and economies and thus reinforcing existing power relations. Nevertheless, more and more artists are creating different methods and strategies of refusal to navigate these at times exotifying frames in various subversive ways to change the game. During the roundtable Joachim Ben Yakoub and Hoda Siahtiri are going to hold space for Afsaneh Salari, Sofia Dati, Audrey Leboutte and Hari P.A. Sacré to share and go deeper in different ways:
- To refuse odd labelings and categorisations by being framed – with stolen virtues of decolonisation- into diversity policies.
- To refuse the dynamics of commodification and being objectified as the new normal of agenda and hyped currents of art.
- To refuse whatever the white gaze may perceive, value and prioritise.
- To refuse being miss perceived and abused in favour of capitalist agendas for art circuits.
- To refuse being eaten as “that kind of thing right now”.
- To change the game
Biographies
Sofia Dati is a programmer for visual and audiovisual arts at Beursschouwburg, Brussels. She was previously part of the curatorial team in WIELS, Brussels, where she contributed to the group exhibition Risquons-Tout. Sofia studied Literature at La Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3, Cultural Studies at KU Leuven and Curatorial Studies at the Fine Arts Academy in Rome, and has written for the magazines Po&Sie, Arshake and Conceptual Fine Arts, among others.
Audrey Leboutte is a founding member of Mangoo Pickle, a collective where she started working as an artistic programmer and producer. She developed a project called La Vitrine, a nomadic artistic installation in public space, which received the Bruoscella and Boost prizes. Her journey with Zinnema started in 2015 as an artist in residency, taking on different roles, first as a member of Zinnema’s think tank, then as a freelancer, a programmer and finally as the artistic coordinator.
Afsaneh Salari is a film director, producer and editor. She’s the co-founder of Docmaniacs Collective in Iran and the Executive producer of Docmaniacs Production in Paris. She’s directed and produced award winning documentaries in Iran and in Europe. Afsaneh’s films deal with the concept of humans & periphery within different meanings and forms. Number of participants: The maximum possible in the venue.
Hari Prasad Adhikari Sacré is an educational scholar and artist working on language, culture, geopolitics, urbanism, race and queerness. He is affiliated to the research group culture & education of Ghent University where he works on a PhD thesis about cultural literacy politics in displacement, nationalism and higher education.
Hoda Siahtiri is an Iranian multidisciplinary artist based in Brussels. Hoda is a Ph.D researcher in arts and her project aims to un-mute bodily memories through the singing practice of Bakhtiari women. Hoda is a co-funder of Docmanics collective and her short films and performances have been shown in different venues and festivals around the world.
Joachim H. Ben Yakoub is a writer, researcher and lecturer operating on the border of different art schools and institutions. He is affiliated to the MENARG and S:PAM research group of Ghent University, where he is conducting research on The Rhythm of Revolting Aesthetics in Brussels. He is also lecturer at Sint-Lucas School of Arts Antwerp, where he is also promotor of the collective action research The Archives of the Tout-Monde.