MTL+ action at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, April 29, 2018. Courtesy of MTL Collective
Event / Decolonizing Assembly
Sunday, September 23, 2018
1–5 pm @ CAMP and Trampoline House
Decolonizing is the work of asking questions. What does decolonizing look like? How do the colonized and the colonizer appear to each other? How can the colonized have the right to look, the right to be seen – in short, the right to appear? What would happen when appearance is decolonized? What has to happen for decolonizing to take place where you live?
The Decolonizing Assembly is an assembly led by MTL Collective that will unpack these questions. The assembly will focus on what would be the framework for thinking through decolonization for the Trampoline House and CAMP spaces and its goers. MTL Collective will begin the conversation not with answers but the possibility of asking better questions as we gather together.
Marronage intervention at SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, May 5, 2017, during SMK Friday: Unfinished Histories. Courtesy of the collective
The assembly also features a keynote by Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies, Gurminder K. Bhambra, who contributes with her paper “Decolonizing Appearance: Migration to Europe in the Context of Migration from Europe." The event concludes with the happening We Are Here – Marronage Is Resistance by the decolonial feminist collective Marronage, who invites the audience to join them for a collective reading of Marronage's manifesto. Together, we will celebrate the past, present, and future acts of resistance.
The assembly is curated by Nicholas Mirzoeff and accompanies CAMP’s new focus! exhibition Decolonizing Appearance, which will be open for viewing during the event. The assembly is conducted in English (with simultaneous interpretation to Farsi and Arabic). All are welcome. Free admission.
Program /
1–1:15:
Welcome / by CAMP's directors and guest curator Nicholas Mirzoeff (Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University)
1:15–2:15:
What is decolonization in this place? / assembly by MTL Collective (a New York-based collaboration that joins research, aesthetics, organizing, and action in its practice)
2:15–2:45:
Lunch (suggested donation DKK 30)
2:45–3:15:
Decolonizing Appearance: Migration to Europe in the Context of Migration from Europe / keynote by Gurminder K. Bhambra (Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex)
3:15–3:45:
We Are Here – Marronage Is Resistance / happening by Marronage (Copenhagen-based decolonial feminist collective)
3:45–4:
Coffee break
4–5:
Concluding discussion / with MTL Collective, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Marronage, and Nicholas Mirzoeff