Sonya Dyer, Forward (2018). Digital image. Image courtesy of the artist
Event / Another World is Possible: poetry, performance and practice
Sunday, December 2, 2018
1–5 pm @ CAMP and Trampoline House
Join us for this event that marks the closing of CAMP’s focus! exhibition Decolonizing Appearance. Under the heading Another World is Possible: poetry, performance and practice, the event brings together a group of cultural practitioners, who in different ways imagine other presents and possible futures through decolonial practice and aesthetics.
As nationalism, racism, and xenophobia claim to be the 'common sense' of the global now, it is vital to continue to imagine other presents and possible futures. And to live in them with the right to appear. What is it to appear? It is first to claim the right to exist and to possess one’s body, whether in terms of enslavement, reproductive rights, or gender and sexual identity. To appear is to matter, in the sense of Black Lives Matter, to be grievable, to be a person that counts for something. And it is to be able to claim the right to look within that space. In appearing, I see you, and you see me, and a space is formed by that exchange, which, by consent, can be mediated into shareable and distributable forms.
Ghetto Fitness aka Kian and MJ. Photo: Radio24sy
Guest curator of the exhibition Decolonizing Appearance, Nicholas Mirzoeff, opens the event by unpacking these questions in his talk “Decolonizing the Space of Appearance.” London-based artist Sonya Dyer will then present her new performance Forward, which contemplates how the abjected body can claim autonomy across the Mediterranean or across the galaxy.
After the lunch break, hosts of the radio program Ghetto Fitness, Kian and MJ, who give a voice to residents in the so-called ghettos in Denmark that we often hear about but rarely hear from, will take audiences through their street training program, messing with our notions of the ‘well-integrated’ and ‘poorly-integrated’ immigrant.
Pedro Lasch will host the workshop “Naturalizations: Facial Politics and Decolonial Aesthetics” during the Dec. 2 closing event. Image courtesy of the artist
Pedro Lasch, Global Indianization / Indianización Global (2009/2018). Map, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
The event is concluded with the workshop “Naturalizations: Facial Politics and Decolonial Aesthetics” by artist and Duke professor Pedro Lasch. The workshop, which takes its starting point in the painted mural Global Indianization / Indianización Global that forms Lasch's contributing to the exhibition, explores the epic growth of cultural and political power accomplished by the very populations who have been accurately and mistakenly defined by the idea of the ‘Indian’ and the ‘Indigenous.’
The Decolonizing Appearance exhibition will be open for viewing during the closing event. The event is organized in collaboration with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Arts: BFA, School of Conceptual and Contextual Practices, and Institute for Art, Writing and Research and is conducted in English (with simultaneous interpretation to Farsi and Arabic).
All are welcome. Free admission.
Program /
1–1:15:
Welcome / by Frederikke Hansen & Tone Olaf Nielsen, CAMP's founders
1:15–1:45:
Decolonizing the Space of Appearance / talk by Nicholas Mirzoeff (Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University)
1:45–2:10:
Ghetto Fitness / intervention by Kian Sadeghi and Mukhtar ’MJ’ Afhakame (hosts of the Danish radio program Ghetto Fitness which gives a voice to the so-called ghettos in Denmark)
2:10–2:40:
Lunch (suggested donation DKK 30)
2:40–3:10:
Forward / performance by Sonya Dyer (artist, London)
3:10–4:10:
Naturalizations: Facial Politics and Decolonial Aesthetics / workshop by Pedro Lasch (artist, Duke professor, 16 Beaver organizer, and FHI Social Practice Lab director)
4:10–4:20:
Fitness break / with Ghetto Fitness
4:20–5:
Concluding discussion / with Sonya Dyer, Kian and MJ, Pedro Lasch, and Nicholas Mirzoeff
5-5:30
Exhibition viewing