CURATING GLOBAL ART - Positions and Voices, Essays and Art from Images 16 by Centre for Culture and Development (CKU)

Curating Global Art Positions and Voices Essays and Art from Images 16

N’Goné Fall, Sarah Rifky, Ade Darmavan, Solvej Helweg Ovesen, Charlotte Bagger Brandt, Amalie Frederiksen, Mia Yates, Gavin Clarke and Christina Papsø Weber Edited by: Maria Bierbaum Oehlenschläger The Centre for Culture and Development (CKU), Copenhagen, Denmark, 2016

Curating Global Art Positions and Voices Essays and Art from Images 16

Publisher: Centre for Culture and Development (CKU) Chief Editor: Lars Bonderup Bjørn Editor: Maria Bierbaum Oehlenschläger Layout: Spine Studio Print: Hørdum & Engelbreth Cover photo: Ibrahim Mahama: ‘Nyhavn Kplang’. Installation: Draped jude sacks. Kunsthal Charlottenborg, 2016. Photo: Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy the artist. The following photos by photographer Jacob Crawfurd: p. 38: Ade Darmawan and Sarah Rifky, p. 60: Ade Darmwan, p. 68: Solvej Helweg Ovesen, p. 82: Charlotte Bagger Brandt, p. 90: Seminar at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, p. 92: Amalie Frederiksen, p. 98: Henrik Broch-Lips, Birgitte Kirkhoff-Eriksen and Karen Grøn. ISBN: 978-87-91067-04-4 IMAGES 16 During Images 16, more than 100 artists present contemporary art from Africa, Asia and the Middle East focusing on global challenges and the dynamics between artist and society in 16 cities in Denmark. Images 16 is realised in cooperation between 25 Danish cultural institutions, the Municipality of Holbæk, 16 international curators and the Centre for Culture and Development (CKU) The 30th of March 2016 Images 16 and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts invited curators, artists and cultural institutions to discuss curation in a global context during the seminar ’Positions and Voices: Curating Non-Western Art in a Western Context’. This publication is based on presentations, essays and photos from Images 16. The publication can be downloaded free of charge from www.cku.dk Centre for Culture and Development (CKU) C/O Statens Museum for Kunst Sølvgade 48-50 1307 København K DK – Denmark Centre for Culture and Development (CKU) CKU is a self-governing institution under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. CKU implements culture programmes in 13 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In Denmark, CKU hosts Images 16 and the Images Youth education material and workshop programme for Danish youth.

Content

Chapter 1: Introducing Images

The (curatorial) negotiations behind Images 16

25 years with Images in Denmark

Chapter 2: Curatorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; perspectives

At the heart of Images 16: Curatorial cooperation

To the Danes

Transforming Attitudes

Selection of artworks and photos

The luxury of failure and uncertainty

Unsustainable privileges in An Age of Our Own Making

ART LAB: Curatorial cooperation as a shared gesture

Chapter 3: Voices from Images 16 seminar

Merging art worlds

How to be international

The responsibility is yours, institutions!

Chapter 1: Introducing Images

The (curatorial) negotiations behind Images 16 By Christina Papsø Weber and Maria Bierbaum Oehlenschläger

“Art insists on values that graciously elevate the collective human consciousness.” – Alexandra Sophia Handal, artist

Images has been a recurring event in Denmark since 1991. Images 16 focused on visual art and presented more than 100 artists and curators from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. With this book, we wish to share some of the ideas and reflections evoked during Images 16. Globalisation, migration and international mobility did take centre stage at Images 16, while questions of positions have been posed in many ways. The contributors to this publication bring in their perspectives and take on the obvious question: How to curate global art? Christopher James Spring, who was the curator at the Sainsbury African Galleries until 2015, describes a feeling of responsibility in presenting a positive, nuanced and reflexive vision of Africa. This feeling of responsibility is valid.

The wish to balance negative ideas and perceptions of countries in Africa, Asia or the Middle East is a high ambition weighed up against the simplifications and stereotypes presented in dominating mainstream media. Images 16 met this challenge by inviting experts in contemporary art from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to engage in the development of Images 16. More than 12 distinguished art professionals, curators, museum directors and biennale leaders from different parts of the world, accepted the invitation. Without their advice, expertise, professionalism and recommendations, Images 16 had just been another euro-centrically curated exhibition series.

Long-distance curation In 2014, we introduced the internationally acclaimed curator N’Goné Fall from Senegal to Karen Grøn, the director of the Danish art museum Trapholt in Kolding. Their negotiations formed a defining moment for Images 16, as the cooperation between N’Goné Fall and Karen Grøn were followed by more than 25 agreements between curators from diverse places as Jakarta, East Jerusalem, Bamako, Kampala, Kathmandu and Yaoundé, the municipality of Holbæk and Danish cultural institutions. The agreements constituted the framework of Images 16 and manifested how Images has traditionally been shaped: By facilitating partnerships between artists, curators and institutions across Denmark and countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Cultural institutions, museums and art galleries offered space and time to obtain the goal of presenting exhibitions under the theme of artist in society in all parts of the country.

Political negotiations One month after the opening of Imran Qureshi: ‘Idea of Landscape’ at KUNSTEN in Aalborg, the art museum Trapholt in Kolding opened the exhibition ‘When Things Fall Apart – Critical Voices on the Radars’. This group exhibition gathered up-coming as well as established artists and was curated by N’Goné Fall from Senegal: “My hope is that the 12 exhibiting artists with their very diverse artworks can inspire hope of a more solidary and empathic world, and challenge the global fear that is dominating the world today,” N’Goné Fall said. The thoughts behind the exhibition at Trapholt corresponded with the political situation in Denmark: An increasing flow of refugees was met with reinforcement of border control, increased security measures and stricter asylum laws. Refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and other war-torn countries applied for asylum in Denmark and some got a residence permit. The art scene promptly reflected the new diversity by including artists that had fled to Denmark in their exhibitions and projects. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde hosted an exhibition with the title ‘Art in Exile’ with eight artists from Afghanistan, Syria and Malaysia. The National Gallery in Copenhagen, SMK, offered internships to new citizens and cooperated with CAMP, Centre for Art on Migration Politics, on the exhibition ‘Migration Politics: Three CAMP exhibitions at the SMK’.

Local – global Art scenes around the world have empowered new positions and voices that bring critique, creativity and new agendas to the table – and many artists are living the paradox of thinking globally and acting locally.

It is no coincidence that Images was born as a festival in the heydays of the post-cold-war era in the 1990’s. Carried by optimism and a growing global outlook, the fusion of culture and development found way to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Denmark. Back then and still in 2016, the aim of Images is to present a nuanced and more complicated idea of Africa, Asia and the Middle East through contemporary artistic expressions. At the same time, Images is a visualisation of the global interconnectedness: Art from all over the world have been woven into Danish art and culture institutions with well-received exhibitions and new connections as tangible results.

Why this book? As part of Images 16, CKU hosted a seminar in March 2016 at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. We invited international curators, scholars, artists and museum directors to discuss with students, politicians and partners. They shared reflections about the changing dynamics of the (art) world, the engagement of audiences in a broader international discourse and the position of the Danish art scene. As a sum-up of the seminar and preparations for Images 16, this publication presents a wide range of the positions and voices that have been heard when developing this yearlong programme of Images 16. The first part is an introduction to Images and the development over 25 years written by Gavin Clarke, former programme manager at CKU and catalyst in developing Images 16. The curatorial triumvirate N’Goné Fall, Ade Darmawan and Sarah Rifky have acted as critical voices, supporters and experts in the development and implementation of Images 16 since December 2014. Here, they reveal their background, approaches and critical points to the Danish art scene.

Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Charlotte Bagger Brandt present two different approaches to curating global art. Curator Solvej Helweg Ovesen describes the content and concept of the exhibition series ‘An Age of Our Own Making – Reflection 1-3’, which she curated in collaboration with Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and was realised by the Municipality of Holbæk. Charlotte Bagger Brandt condenses the rich conversations that took place during Art Lab 1. Framed as a yearlong curatorial intensive, Art Lab establishes contact between artists and curators across geographical contexts in an intimate and social setting. A baton race has inspired Art Lab in so far as the first participants forward the baton to the next. Based on the outcome of the seminar in March, Ph.D. fellow Mia Yates writes about the institutional responsibility in embracing global perspectives when working with exhibition strategies. Curator Amalie Frederiksen sums up one of the roundtable discussions called ‘Reframing the Discourse’, where scholars, journalists, curators and institution directors came up with four suggestions of how to make changes when working with international exhibition strategies.

Inspiration for new collaborations Change is in many ways the essence of Images 16. The aim has been to build a platform for exchanging ideas and develop curatorial practices in order to present a Danish audience to the most interesting artworks and -practices from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. To give you an impression of the artworks, we have dedicated much of the publication to photo documentation from the Images 16 exhibitions.

With this book our hope is to inspire others to take up the baton from Images 16 and make global artistic collaboration an integral part of the Danish art scene.

Christina PapsĂ¸ Weber: National Director at CKU and head of Images 16. Educated in Art History from the University of Copenhagen and UPENN. Maria Bierbaum OehlenschlĂ¤ger: Communication Officer at CKU, 2010 and 2013-2016. Holds a MA in African Studies and a Magister degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Copenhagen.

Alexandra Sophia Handal: ‘No Parking Without Permission’. Photography. Courtesy the artist.

Shirin Aliabadi: ‘Miss Hybrid 1’ (2006). Photography. Courtesy the artist.

25 years with Images in Denmark By Gavin Clarke

1991-2016. These years mark the beginning and the end of Images. First it was a festival, since it became an international art programme in Denmark. Throughout its 25 yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; existence, Images has gone through radical changes and survived international crisis, shifting political winds and different structures. The stories of Images and of the Centre for Culture and Development (CKU) are intertwined: CKU grew out of the first Images Festivals. The recognition and discovery of the creative and artistic talent in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and first-hand knowledge about the hindrances and lack of art infrastructure during the preparations for the Images Festivals in the 90â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s led directly to the establishment of CKU in 1998.

Breaking stereotypes The first three Images festivals, Images of Africa 1, 2 and 3 in 1991, 1993 and 1996, were developed and managed by K.I.T (Copenhagenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s International Theatre). The aim was to present and showcase contemporary art and artists from Africa. The festivals had a multidisciplinary approach including visual arts, performing arts, media arts and literature with the

intention of presenting the Danish public with a broad spectrum of events, performances and exhibitions that highlighted the variety and quality of artistic work produced across the length and breadth of the African continent. The motivation and aim of Images was to nuance the perceptions of Danish audiences and stimulate greater interest in, and understanding of, other cultures outside of the West. The popularity and success of these first festivals led to the recognition that art and culture were a definitive element in the Danish development strategy. In 1998, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the Centre for Culture and Development, a self-governing institution with two primary aims: â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘

To coordinate and manage cultural development programmes in Danida priority countries To promote art and artists from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, in Denmark.

From 1998 to 2013 CKU produced a further five Images festivals: Images of Asia, Images of the Middle East, Images of the World, My World Images and Occupy Utopia. Despite having different geographical and thematic areas of focus, these later editions of Images used the same festival format as the Images of Africa series and shared the same goals.

Art worlds 2016 marks the 25th anniversary of Images. This presented us with the ideal opportunity to critically self-reflect on the experiences and challenges of producing Images and to ask ourselves whether the festival form would still be relevant and ideal with regards to achieving the initial objectives. Both Denmark as well as the countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East we engage with, have undergone significant economic, political, social and cultural changes over the last

17 IMAGES 16 PERSPECTIVES The collective exhibitions of IMAGES 16 approach the theme of the Artist in Society through a variety of perspectives: Art as agency Art as the enactment of citizenship Art as self-recognition and empathic reflection Art as collective memory Art as engagement with human rights, political rights or cultural rights Art as an expression of equality and of equal justice.

quarter of a century. The original joie de vivre and naiveté (and I use that term in its most positive sense) in the cultural meetings and exchanges of the first Images festivals in the early 90’s have matured into a greater consciousness of self and the other. The global arts scene has also undergone massive changes and developments over the past 25 years: • • •

• •

The changing geographical locations of arts hubs from North to South The increased migration and free movement of art and artists from South to North The innovation of new artistic trends and critical discourses developed independently, outside Western contexts The developing relationship of art to global sustainability and local self-consciousness The digital revolution giving access to artist networks and art works across borders and distances

â&#x20AC;˘

The growing emphasis on South-South collaboration as a more meaningful form of dialogue and exchange.

All of these are indicators of the shifts that have taken place in what we have sometimes perceived to be the centre and periphery of the art world.

Festival fatigue and decentralisation Acknowledging these changed dynamics in Denmark, in the world surrounding us and on the international art scene as the new reality in which Images had to navigate led us to new questions: â&#x20AC;˘

How could Images act as a platform for sustainable intercultural dialogue and artistic exploration between the Danish art scenes and the art scenes in the countries that CKU engages with?

SamulNori, a Chorean percussion and dance group performing during Images of Asia in Copenhagen in 2003.

•

How could Images support Danish arts institutions to participate in the critical discourses developing outside of Western contexts and in the art hubs of the Global South? How could CKU encourage ownership and responsibility for Images by and between our Danish and international collaborates, and how could Images be a framework for equitable dialogue in this process? How could Images promote the development of sustainable, responsible and creative international art strategies that sought collaboration, exploration and exchange with non-western art scenes in Danish arts institutions?

With Images 16 we have broken with the festival format and developed a yearlong program anchored in one municipal administration and 25 art institutions spread through four of Denmark’s five regions. We have moved away from a multidisciplinary approach to explore a single artistic discipline, the visual arts, to allow for a greater depth of focus and to encourage a diversity of perspectives on the issues, themes and discourses being explored. We have handed the programming over to Danish institutions and partnered them with 16 international curators from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to develop the content and positions of the 25 Images exhibitions, programs and events in 2016. We have developed and created opportunities for our Danish partners to meet with international curators and artists, travel to and engage with international art scenes, participate in dialogue and explore possibilities for building long-term partnerships.

The artist and society In the process of framing the theme for Images 16 it was our goal to take a point of departure in current discourses in the arts scenes of the countries involved in the Images program. While the theme needed to ensure the integrity of the artists that were involved, it also needed to be relatable for Danish institutions and defined broadly enough to encompass the diversity of perspectives that local art galleries, regional kunsthaller and national art museums would bring to the programme. The concept of exploring the positions and voices of artists in society as a broad underlying framework for Images 16 was developed through dialogue and consultation with international arts institutions and curators from the arts scenes that Images engages with. The position taken by the Images team is that the theme neither refers to nor examines political art or social art nor sets out to question whether art should or should not be politically or socially engaged in its nature. Through the collective exhibitions of Images 16 we wished to explore how art and artists from Africa, Asia and the Middle East position themselves in relation to their contexts and to the surrounding social framework in which they operate. It is not our contention that art or artists necessarily want to change or even can change the political and social systems they reference through their practise. Rather, we contend, the practice and production of art is socially engrained in the fibres of the contexts and cultures in which the artists produce their work. It references the concerns and the daily lives of peoples and more often than not, it can creatively inspire the viewer to seek for or to find creative solutions to the challenges they face in their day to day existence â&#x20AC;&#x201C; whether these be political, social, cultural or economical.

Assuming a culture The stories of them and us do not start together, but over time, we also have become inextricably entwined. The African philosopher, writer and revolutionary Frantz Fanon wrote that, “to speak a language is to assume a culture”. Perhaps what he meant was to claim a place in culture, to construct a visual language – not only to express a culture, but if you are an artist to build it, to give it shape and form. What happens when our culture bumps up against the other’s culture? When that borderline that we imagined was there between us doesn’t exist anymore, and our black and white perceptions suddenly become grey? What happens is that it creates an exchange that generates, what we call human culture. And it is when we don’t practise it that we suddenly become aware of its central importance for human development.

Gavin Clarke: Program Manager for Images and Images Youth, CKU, 2009-2016. Graduated from the University of Cape Town in English, Theatre and Drama, 1987.

Chapter 2: Curatorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Perspectives

At the heart of Images 16: Curatorial cooperation

Images 16 is developed in close dialogue and cooperation with curators rooted in the global art world(s). When Danish cultural institutions invite international artists to Denmark, exhibitions are usually set up by Danish curators, while European artists dominate the exhibition programs. It is typically neither a lack of will, nor interest that keeps European art exhibitions European. Lack of resources, knowledge and networks are often among the hindrances to include art from countries or regions in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. With Images 2016, the tendency to bypass artists from the southern hemisphere is challenged by a panel of international curators. From different countries, traditions and fields of expertise, the curators involved in Images 16 have built solid bridges between cultural institutions in Denmark and art scenes abroad. Taking upon them the role as negotiators between artists and art institutions, the curators managed to overcome uneasy attitudes towards art from non-Western countries and initiated international collaborations at over 20 Danish art and cultural institutions. The ambition was to make it self-evident and attractive for Danish institutions to look to art scenes outside Europe and America.

24 INTERNATIONAL CURATORS INVOLVED IN IMAGES 16 N’Goné Fall Independent curator, Senegal/France Member of Images 16 advisory panel Curator of the Images exhibition ‘When Things Fall Apart – Critical Voices on the Radar’ at Trapholt Art Museum, Kolding Ade Darmawan Director of the Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia Member of Images 16 advisory panel Curator of Images exhibition ‘SuperSub – On Collectivism’ at the contemporary art centre Den Frie, Copenhagen Sarah Rifky Curator, Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cairo, Egypt Member of Images 16 advisory panel Member of jury for the Images 16 Open Call at Aarhus Kunsthalle Alia Rayyan Curator and director, Al Hoash Gallery, Jerusalem, Palestine Co-curator of the Images exhibition ‘Intermolecular Spaces’ at Kunsthal Nord, Aalborg, and curator of the Images solo exhibition with Alexandra Sophia Handal, ‘Memory Flows like the Tide at Dusk’, at the Museum for Contemporary Art in Roskilde Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung Independent curator, Yaoundé, Cameroun/Germany Co-curator of the Images exhibition series ‘An Age of Our Own Making – Reflection I-III’ in Holbæk City, at Holbæk City, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, the Roskilde Festival and Kunsthal Charlottenborg

25 Solvej Ovesen Independent curator, Denmark/Germany Co-curator of the Images exhibition series ‘An Age of Our Own Making – Reflection I-III’ in Holbæk City, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, the Roskilde Festival and Kunsthal Charlottenborg Charlotte Bagger Brandt Curator and director, Raaderum, Denmark Curator of Alt_Cph and coordinator of the Images curatorial intensive, ART LAB 1-3 Alia Swastika Independent curator and co-curator of the 2011 Biennale Jogja XI, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Co-curator of the Images’ ‘Hacking Urban Reality Series 1-3’ at the Digital Art Space, DIAS, in Vallensbæk Razia Sadik Curator and faculty member at Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts & Design (SVAD), Lahore, Pakistan Co-curator of Imran Qureshi’s solo exhibition ‘Idea of Landscape’ at KUNSTEN – Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg Sangeeta Thapa Founder and director of the Siddhartha Art Foundation and Gallery in Kathmandu, Nepal Co-curator of Images exhibition ‘Nepal – parallel realities’ at Moesgaard Museum, Aarhus Akinbode Akinbiyi Photographer and curator, Nigeria/Germany Curator of the Images solo exhibition with Mimi Cherono Ng’ok: ‘Always, in Spite of Everything’ at Gallery Image, Aarhus

Tiffany Chung (Vietnam): ‘Scratching the walls of memory’ (2010). Installation: 24 hand stitched embroidered sachets made of old army tents, 38 hand made children’s chalkboards with recycled wood, old children’s desk set. Photo: René Mastrup. Courtesy the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art Gallery New York.

To the Danes

By N’Goné Fall

“We are all brothers under the skin, and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.” – Ayn Rand. Russian-American philosopher, novelist and play writer, 20th century.

Many people refer to Africa as the territory bellow the South of the Sahara, as if North Africa was an autonomous island floating on the Mediterranean Sea. This definition suggests that North Africa is a territory that has nothing to do with the rest of the continent. For projects and programs, artists from this region have often been locked in pigeonholes and have been allowed to wear different hats and play with various labels: Mediterranean, Middle East, Arab, and, to a minor extent, Africa. It is time to understand and acknowledge that North Africa belongs to the African continent, and that its population has thousands of years of shared history, uninterrupted cultural, spiritual, political and economic ties with Sub-Sahara Africa. In my case, when not specified, by Africa I always mean the entire continent.

“African Art”? Twenty-five years ago (and unfortunately even sometimes today) by ‘African art’ people would mean/understand wood masks and/or craft. As a Senegalese curator, I often had the disturbing feeling that I was seen as a wood dealer or a hyper enthusiast promoter of hand made mass-produced tacky exotic junk for tourists. How can that seriously be possible? How can a continent with fifty-four countries, 30 220 000 square kilometers, inhabited by over a billion souls be reduced to a huge curiosity cabinet, deaf and dumb to all the sounds of a continuously changing world? History and human adventure have been written from a euro-centric perspective that celebrated the Great Explorers and Western industrial revolution. This narrative, solely the hunter’s story, reduced ‘the others’ to indigenous people awaiting salvation through technological progress. The others, in this tale, are so different that a special treatment, based on classification, is needed to describe them. And thus, for decades, ethnographic museums had the monopoly on non-western cultures. Standing like sacred temples celebrating defunct colonial powers, they are proud and dormant. By accident or by design, these cemeteries of foreign everyday objects and relics have been making their audiences believe that Africa is the receptacle of frozen traditions and cultures, as if time and technology never made any kind of impact on the continent. This idea is reinforced by most of the publications on the world’s history of art. These books have several entries such as Ancient Chinese and Japanese art, Pre-Colombian art, Ancient Egyptian art, African art, Celtic art, Antique Greek art, Roman art, Modern and Contemporary (Western of course) art. While looking at the work of Matthew Barney or Olafur Eliasson people will never refer to their supposed Celtic or Roman origins. But the same people will, without any shame, emphasize the “Africaneity” of Pascale Marthine Tayou or El Anatsui. Are African artists condemned to carry a supposed specific antique heritage and be expected to perpetuate

obsolete traditions? In 2007, the artistic directors of Documenta XII raised one question: is modernity our antiquity? Does that question also concern Africa? Or is the continent still on the hard journey to embrace modernity? Are African art specialists aliens of contemporary issues of the 20th and 21st centuries to the point that it is needed to showcase African art separately from the rest of the international art world? Can African art be accepted only if it remains in a ghetto?

The ‘Dark Continent’ in the proper light The 1990s witnessed the rise of contemporary African art in the West and its ‘discovery’ by an international audience. In Europe, USA and Japan, many institutions wanted to have their African show. We came close to an oversaturation, and I personally reached an overdose. Some African artists, as if coming out of the closet, had some hours of glory with blockbuster exhibitions ranging from Africa Explores (1991) to Africa Remix (2004). If these exhibitions proved that the continent had more than masks and crafts to offer, and that Africa was involved in contemporary creativity, they also raised disturbing questions. All these shows included the word Africa in their title to make sure the audience knew it was bestowed with the gift to consume something truly different and special. They almost all had weak or empty content, somehow close to the national touring exhibitions African States organized in the 1960s, as if the only motivation was to celebrate the diversity of African cultures internationally. But is art only about celebration and aesthetics? Are African artists just entertainers who have nothing to think about and say? Indeed contemporary art from Africa was in the spotlight but on the wrong stage. It has to be clear: producing an African show is to invite the audience to a zoo; it is never about the concept and the issues the exhibition is raising. Producing an African show is to invite the audience to consume an exotic

fruit. An African show is not for art professionals or art lovers. It is for stokers seeking to contemplate how the others behave, think and create artifacts. Fortunately the 1990s also witnessed the start of initiatives that became more challenging platforms over the years. Western-based art magazines such as Revue Noire (Paris, 1991– 2001) and NKA (New York, 1994–) as well as African-based visual arts biennials such as in Dakar (1992), Bamako (1994) and Johannesburg (1995–1997) provided content and analysis, thus allowing contemporary art from Africa to present and share the conceptual issues and esthetical choices African artists stand for. Finally the ‘Dark Continent’ was in the proper light. It was the Time of Africa, a moment preceding a new international context which will close the old fashion chapter of producing regional and continental exhibitions (Scandinavia, Latin America, Asia, Africa) as if selling exotic brands, and lead to an exhibition-making shift in the years to come.

We are the World At the twilight of the 1990s, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, we were predicted a better world. A world without an Iron Curtain marching towards more tolerance in which all human beings and all cultures will be equal. Throughout an autopsy of post-colonialism and Cold War, concepts and discourses were seeking new ways to apprehend the world: a large therapy that was meant to heal our wounds and save our souls. At the approach of the new millennium, some quixotic minds were even expecting a worldwide redemption. The wave of hope and euphoria reached all the continents. Developing countries were at last expecting an acknowledgement of their cultural and social values. To consider those who did not benefit from History’s vicissitudes, the social and the cultural became key elements to shape the politics of inclusion and development. From the famous song We are the World to political and commercial slogans such

as Rainbow Nation and United Colors of Benetton, decision-makers were stating that multiculturalism and diversity were extraordinary opportunities to happily live together ever after. Fraternity, solidarity and respect became the motto of Culture & Development European agencies. Always on the watch and often avant-garde, the art world took a close look at the political and social consequences of a changing world. In different parts of the globe, the post-colonial context, democracy, territories, hybridism, diversity and globalization found their way in the midst of exhibitions and theories about contemporary art. At the turn of the millennium, a new generation of art professionals redefined curatorial concepts, conscious of a new global role to play. Their essays and exhibitions reflected their cross-cultural identities, their mobility and their sense of freedom to deal with far-away cultures. Like modern explorers investigating new lands, they looked beyond traditional western borders, driving out new artistic platforms and artists around the world. And perhaps, while referring to their projects, pop singer Lou Bega can rewrite his famous 1999 hit Mambo NÂ°5 1 and whisper: A little bit of Europe in my life, A little bit of Australia by my side, A little bit of USA is all I need, A little bit of Latin America is what I see, A little bit of Asia in the sun, A little bit of Arabia all night long, A little bit of Africa here I am, Little bits of the world make me its man.

1. Lou Bega, Mambo NÂ°5 a little bit of Monica in my life a little bit of Erica by my side a little bit of Rita is all I need a little bit of Tina is what I see a little bit of Sandra in the sun a little bit of Marie all night long a little bit of Jessica here I am a little bit of you makes me your man

The proliferation of biennials in non-western countries and the increase of truly international exhibitions heckling the world with global issues have slightly re-balanced the prevalence of the North on the South, thus questioning a western artistic monopoly. A new generation of curators probing foreign cultures generated different concepts and practices, thus implementing new landmarks in exhibition making. We can now acknowledge that we have a plurality of options in a global world. A new art world cartography was born.

Africa is not a country The inclusion of African artists in these biennials and international exhibitions induced a new insight into their work. Taking for granted that in a global context people around the world have more in common than one might think, curators finally started analyzing contemporary art from Africa without at last focusing on or emphasizing specific ethnic and cultural identities, as well as on contexts related to civil wars, pandemics or starvation. They were simply showing and writing about artists who happened to be Africans. But because non-Africans have produced the majority of the projects outside of the continent, many in Africa felt that little had change since the golden age of ethnography when African cultures were analyzed and defined abroad. In Dakar, during the 2004 biennial, when Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist – with a great dose of provocation and irony – publicly asked who had the right to talk about contemporary African art, he received a loud response thrashing with testosterone. I think African intellectuals and artists are still on the way to recovery by having been culturally defined through a western lens with western references over a century. The appropriate reaction or answer to Obrist’s falsely naïve question would have been to ask him back: can one talk about an artwork while ignoring or misunderstanding the social, cultural and political context that witnessed its birth? When it comes to Africa, why do we, as Africans, have to keep

on endlessly stating the obvious and politely say: No, Africa is not a country, it’s a continent with fifty-four countries. Yes it’s a very big and truly diverse continent. No, African artists do not have to behave like social workers just because they come from developing countries. I have no idea how to define contemporary African art and by the way please define contemporary European art for me.

Do the homework Dear Danes, please be aware that politeness has its limits. Today Internet offers a simple and easy access to basic knowledge. I personally invite people to do their homework before daring to have a conversation about African art with me. This can sound arrogant, but it is just that I am tired of people’s lack of curiosity, poor intellectual background and yet very pretentious down looking attitude when they interact with someone from a developing country. Fortunately some Africans are more patient than I am. According to Senam Okudzeto, Ghanaian scholar and a visual artist “it’s good to keep the lines of communication open, if we don’t keep speaking to these people so much worse can happen...” Much worse indeed as we still see “funny” African art projects popping up in Europe from time to time, as well as amateurish Western art project producers haunting the continent in search of “nice authentic African art to promote abroad”. If Senam Okudzeto is so tolerant, it is perhaps because she belongs to the new generation of art professionals from developing countries that are the architect of the important transformations one can notice in the global South. The private art initiatives this generation has been implementing have impacted the landscape by strongly questioning both public cultural policies, as well as the monopoly hold on exhibition spaces by European cultural centers in their countries. The past decade, the number of independent contemporary visual arts spaces has significantly increased. With inspiring

programs ranging from solo and group shows, series of lectures and publications, residencies and workshops on art production, art theory and curatorial practices, these new platforms act as cultural laboratories reflecting the mutations of societies. With solid continental and international networks, they provide the free flow of information, knowledge and ideas, facilitate research and analysis, encourage the exchange of practices, and offer multiple point of views on contemporary visual artistic productions from developing countries. Platforms for interaction with creative thinking methods, these spaces have sharpened the relationship between aesthetics and criticism. They have also created new strategy channels for dialogue. In this third millennium, the art production of artists from developing countries is being more widely and more deeply discussed and analyzed locally, thus providing a more accurate context-based understanding of the various artistic productions they generate. This past decade the new art protagonists from developing countries have created a salutary domino effect challenging the need for proper stages and keys to understand the mechanisms of artistic productions, the dynamics of the diverse art communities and more precisely, how contemporary visual arts from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Arab countries are resonating in the world.

Hunting down clichĂŠs There is no longer in any way a matter of doubt: contemporary art from Africa and the global South are part of the international art scene. By the use of a large variety of mediums and the probing of both domestic and international contemporary issues, artists from Africa are tempering the grievous image of a continent congealed in obsolete secular traditions, hostage of civil wars, pandemics and chronicle debt.

CKU, the Danish Center for Culture and Development, created an art festival to hunt down these clichés. In the past, the festival was region oriented (Images Africa, Images Asia, Images Middle East, etc.) and, with no surprise, it raised very limited interest from the local and international art communities. And in developing countries, art professionals took offence of this heavily old fashion and paternalistic approach that left, for many, a rancid taste of bitterness on the tip of their lips. But fortunately, CKU was able to read the silent protests and condescending boycotts. Images 2016 has been designed by a team including officers with an art background that decided to radically change the rules and the perception of the event in Denmark. The first unorthodox rule was to build a national network of Danish art institutions that will develop specific projects for the festival. The second unorthodox rule was to acknowledge that Denmark – unlike other Western countries – was still at the margins of international exhibition making methods that include artists from all parts of the globe, and that its museum teams have very little knowledge and understanding of art scenes in the global South. The third unorthodox rule was to organize what I called ‘series of blind speed dates’: curators from developing countries were invited to Denmark to visit art institutions across the country with the aim to find a host and design an exhibition for the festival. The fourth unorthodox rule was the smart idea to avoid any regional or cultural reference. Artist in Society, the theme of Images 2016, is broad and inclusive enough to allow guest curators to develop an exhibition that can resonate in the Danish society as well as internationally. And this fourth rule is perhaps what convinced me to ‘play the game’. I made it very clear during those odd blind speed dates: I was not interested in curating an African show in the West and that caught the attention of the Trapholt museum in Kolding. The project I developed is precisely about the role and responsibility of an artist in the society. Indeed as a Senegalese one can refer to me as an African curator, and the

starting point of my concept is the most read, most translated, most studied novel my continent ever generated. But the exhibition is not an African exhibition. It is first and foremost a platform for artists who are taking a stand for equal justice, social change and empathy. It is a metaphor of the 19th century context of the novel that inspired me. It mirrors the current international context heavily loaded with power control, ostracism, intolerance, withdrawal into oneself and fear. When things fall apart: Critical voices on the radars is an exhibition in which twelve artists use humor, poetry, radical protest or interactive role-play, to direct a critical gaze at a world that is drifting to emphasize the vital necessity to learn to live together. For the survival of communities is at stake, for the survival of humanity is at stake. The exhibition is about all of us. It is not an African exhibition. It is an invitation to listen to eight women and four men who happen to be from Palestine, Guatemala, East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa and South East Asia.

Belonging to a bigger picture Dear Danes, I can hear the devilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advocate asking why should Denmark spend public funding to invite foreign curators to showcase foreign cultures instead of celebrating its own national cultural pride. Well, because it is not just about you Danes, it is about inviting you to celebrate your belonging to a greater picture. It is about inviting you to take the lead of the movement that acknowledges the contribution of a massive crowd of individuals, living all around the world, who have been building the great path of carving and elevating the History of Humanity. Dear Danes, as children of the Northern Light, I invite you to remember the quote by Ayn Rand at the beginning of this text. CKU is closing down this year and will no longer be here to expand your horizon and invite you to embrace all the differences that make each and all of us so special. Your country is closing its borders, you are more than ever

afraid of the ‘Other’ and you are now listening to the seemingly sweet sirens of the Nemesis you created. But it is your duty, as a people, not to hand over the world to murderers of the dawn. 2 – N’Goné Fall

PS: you are only five million out of seven billion inhabitants on this planet. And one day, you could be the one looking for help. Who will ever stand for you if you remain deaf and indifferent to the tears and turmoil of your Black, Arab, Latino and Asian brothers and sisters? N’Goné Fall: Independent Curator, Senegal.

2. There is no question of handing over the world to murderers of the dawn. Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), French poet and politician.

Transforming Attitudes By Sarah Rifky

In the late summer of 2007—nearly a decade ago today— I landed in Copenhagen for the first time. I was to catch a train to Malmö to start my graduate studies at the Art Academy. It was there that I first started making friends with ideas, critically speaking. Arriving from Cairo, the transition was immense—I was endlessly surprised by the demographic of where I was and how art institutions grappled with this diversity of waves of migration, the density of an Arab presence that had found its way North. In the well-to-do haven that seemed to characterize this place of Scandinavia, it felt there was a dearth in the institutional acknowledgement of diversity. At the Konsthögskolan, we were less than a handful of foreigners, utlänningar/udlændinge, students out of lands. There was an undercurrent of oriental fantasy that appeared in bouts through Middle Eastern film festivals (tritely named “MidEast Cut”) where people donned national costumes and served hummus. Despite their best intentions and democratic ideals, Malmö as my new abode and Copenhagen as my new capital seemed flat or provincial by contrast to other places in Europe in many ways.

Copenhagen talks It was by a stroke of fortune that while I was struggling with orienting myself in my studies that I was introduced to Tone Olaf Nielsen. She would be my reader and beacon through my two years of graduate school, although she was not affiliated to the academy. Based in Copenhagen, every few weeks I would creatively pay the exorbitant train fare shuttling between the two cities. I was struck by her bold feminist flair and sense of solidarity. The first day we met, she wore a black T-shirt inscribed with Arabic text. It is there with Tone that I first learned of paramount projects by Kuratorisk Aktion – of which Tone was a cofounder – like “Rethinking Nordic Colonialism,” the postcolonial five-act exhibition project, and the work of Pia Arke. Arke, a Danish Greenlandic artist who died quite young had challenged Danish colonial narratives, urging their re-examination. Her largest exhibition happened posthumously through the collaborative curatorial effort of Frederikke Hansen and Tone O. Nielsen, Kuratorisk Aktion. Through the time spent in Tone’s office, talking and discussing life, love, feminism, writing, representation, politics, texts, I developed a more nuanced understanding of an art world that I would soon join as a professional. My aspiration – convoluted at the time – was to assume the position of a curator, an arbiter of art and a voice of institutions. My frustrations as a once-upon-a-time artist-aspirant were only accentuated by the fact that Egypt was mired in its own political shortcomings, which resounded in the absence of robust institutional infrastructure: health, educational or otherwise, and by extension of course, institutions of and for art. The time I spent flitting in and out of Copenhagen while living in Malmö (often supported by odd jobs such as being a Mystery Shopper for Urban Outfitters on Kongensgade) was eventually enlightening in bouts.

Memory from My World Images 2010 By 2010, I had been away from Malmö for a year working as curator of Townhouse, a contemporary art space in Cairo, when in the late summer I returned to Copenhagen, traveling onwards to Roskilde. It was on the occasion of an Images Festival, part of which took place under the auspices of Nikolaj Kunsthal happening in public space, more specifically at Blaagaards Plads in Nørrebro. I remember receiving a lengthy email from Elisabeth Delin Hansen, director of Nikolaj Kunsthal at the time, about how to get there. Amid her many paragraphs of instruction, she said: “It’s not so easy to explain how to get there, though it’s not so complicated in reality.” I remember with fondness (and frustration) many details and challenges the project presented at that time. The rifts between its good intentions of inviting “Arab artists” to work with the “foreign locals” and the outcomes of the project, which seemed forced, remained. Eventually, a shelf of sorts (an artwork in public space) by Huda Lutfi, an Egyptian artist, made its way into the founding space of Trampolinhuset, an establishment with an activist bent, designed to think beyond art and the curatorial with artists, asylum-seekers, students, and an array of professionals, many of whom were also refugees.

The urgency of curating Trampolinhuset was founded in 2010 to address the absence of needed organization dedicated to legal counseling, language classes, everyday work and integration efforts for those seeking asylum and refuge in Copenhagen upon arrival. Tone and Kuratorisk Aktion, key instigators of the project, came to reconfigure my understanding of urgency of what our work as curators in the world really was. It was apparent already that our work extended to creating space for community in different circumstances: it transformed as needed.

Trampolinhuset is a creative enterprise of self-governance, resilient and active in its stance. It’s moved deeper into the heart of Nørrebro and now hosts the Center for Art on Migration Politics (CAMP). It still exists and gives solace to those who seek it. In the following years, I received recurring invitations to Copenhagen. Whenever I visited Trampolinhuset, I mused that for people hailing from everywhere to Copenhagen in search of refuge or asylum, this institution was becoming a port of arrival, a way into the city and its life. For me, on the other hand, it was a point of departure. I always left it with trajectories of inspiration, energy, and a critical thrust in curatorial thought, bouncing with ideas. Over the course of the last two years, my engagements in Copenhagen intensified, partially through serendipitous invitations to return to the city. I became part of an international “expert” committee of artists/curators brought on board by CKU for the “ultimate” Images Festival. When we convened for our first few meetings with CKU, we didn’t imagine that the occasion that heralded us was bound to close before our work was over. Our mission of thinking of Images 16 moving forward into the future, while bringing worlds closer together through bolstering more meaningful and critical transcontinental exchange, was halted. We inadvertently became witnesses of the sudden dismantling of a 25-year-old organization dedicated to the support of art and culture in Denmark and the world, after the Danish government deemed it unworthy of support.

Between Cairo and Copenhagen I was informed about this grievous decision in brief and cursory terms. Along the course of my own advisory and incomer-like engagement with CKU, I had experienced the gentle coercion of a failing revolution in Egypt and its effects on an

art space I had co-founded in Cairo in 2012. Three years later, our fledgling institution had closed. By the time I arrived in Copenhagen in April of this year, Townhouse, which had been shut down for several months last year by government, military order or municipality functionaries (we will never know), its doors sealed in red wax for months, had collapsed. The century-old building in Cairo had faltered, in hopelessness or protest. The three-storey house reduced to rubble – a loss physically manifest. Thinking about my shuttling back and forth between Cairo and Copenhagen, mentally, brings the two closer together. The realities are most certainly different, although both cities father fairytales and mother fantastical stories. Mired in their own ways, politically, they are not equal. It would be hypocritical to honour an invitation and commitment to write a tenable essay on the state of the last Images Festival for this publication, as report or measured reflection, when it now bears the weight of being the last.

Small forms of solidarity I try to summon my memory and my notes from the last trip to Copenhagen. What surfaces is silences and gaps, long bus rides between cities across Denmark. I remember with some clarity that, at one point, the bus broke down and we weren’t allowed to leave the coach until another had arrived. I remember my own attempts to engage exhibitions and conversations, largely overcast by a state of being depressed at the fact that this space, this vantage point of my own critical thinking, this place too, was on the brink of loss to another government on the “wrong side.” The symposium had acerbic moments, many of which were verging on a state of needing to do something, but never knowing exactly what to do, what to say. Occasionally, knowing glances were exchanged among colleagues, a pat on the back for a job lost, a forced move to another city, another

current of emergency transitions and change. There were long memorable exchanges in the margins of this last visit, small forms of solidarity shared over meals and drinks. I remember Elisabeth’s email about how to get to Blaagardsplads and feel it forecasted a roadmap to the future, a little encryption of hope in simple steps: It’s not so easy to explain how to get there, though it’s not so complicated in reality.

Sarah Rifky: Writer and curator, co-founder of Beirut (20122015), curator of Townhouse (2009-2011), member of Images 16 advisory panel and jury member for the Images 16 Open Call at Aarhus Kunsthal. She is pursuing a doctoral degree in History, Theory and Criticism at MIT.

Abdellatif Snoussi: ‘The Line of Life – Laaroussa’. Photography. Courtesy the artist, L’Art Rue and Madrassa Collective.

Selected works Climate change, terror, gender and refugees: During Images 16 more than 100 artists from Africa, Asia and the Middle East have enriched and challenged the Danish art scene with talks, workshops and artworks that have never been presented in Denmark before.

Ibrahim Mahama: ‘Open Gates’ (2015-16), Jute sacks, Art installation, An Age of Our Own Making – Reflection I, Harbour and Vang Area in Holbæk, 2016. Photo: Laura Stamer.

Imran Qureshi: ‘And They Still Seek the Traces of Blood’, Art Installation, Idea of a Landscape, KUNSTEN – Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg, 2016. Photo: Anders Sune Berg.

Nidaa Badwan: ‘One hundred days of Solitude’ (2014). Digital photography. Courtesy the artist.

Athi-Patra Ruga: ‘The Decimation – A Death Procession’, ACTS 2016, An Age of Our Own Making – Reflection II, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde to Roskilde Festival, 2016. Photo: Jacob Crawfurd.

Shadi Alzaqzouq ‘Inside me a tent’ (2015), Projection of art work (oil on canvas), Intermolecular Spaces, Kunsthal Nord, Aalborg, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Collection Barjeel Art Foundation.

Mimi Cherono Ng’ok: ‘Untitled’ (2014), Photo, Always, In Spite of Everything, Galleri Image, 2016. Courtesy the artist.

Arahmaiani Faisal: ‘Do not prevent the fertility of the mind’ (2014). Photography and 250 wingless maxi feminine napkins, 12 fluorescent lights, withe stool, glass vial with red liquid, withe tulle fabric. 3 m x 3 m (photography: 60 cm x 60 cm). Photo: René Mastrup. Courtesy the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art Gallery New York.

Wambui Kamiru(Kenya): ‘Harambee63’. (2013). Video installation. 90mn. 63 pairs of gumboots, 2 tables, 2 tablecloths, 4 chairs, 1 beer crate, posters, bar. Size variable (ap. 4 m x 5 m). Photo: René Mastrup. Courtesy the artist.

Nadine Atallah (curator) at the opening of Madrassa Collective: Something to Generate From, Kunsthal Aarhus, 2016. Photo: Jens MĂ¸ller.

Noor Abu Arafeh (artist) preparing: ‘A state closer to death than it is to life’ (2012), Installation, Intermolecular Spaces, Kunsthal Nord, Aalborg, 2016. Courtesy Kunsthal Nord. Photo: Niels Fabæk.

Randa Maroufi (artist) in front of her work ’Reconstitutions’ (2016), Photo, Merchants of Dreams, Viborg Kunsthal and Brandts 13, Odense. Photo: Astrid Dalum.

Zen Marie (South Africa): ‘The Perfect Leader’ (2009) Video. 4 mn 31 s. Photo: René Mastrup. Courtesy the artist.

Coffee tasting with Barthélémy Toguo (artist and founder of Bandjoun Station). Part of Madrassa Collective: Something to Generate From, Kunsthal Aarhus, 2016. Photo: Jens Møller.

The luxury of failure and uncertainty: Art collectives as networking and educational platforms in Indonesia By Ade Darmawan

In more than 15 years, Indonesian art collectives or initiatives and art communities have played an important role in restoring the chain of the discursive production in the art and its social engagement, and fill in its missing links. This dynamic with its strategic and significant positions naturally brings the artâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production of ideas to a broader societal context. Some art collectives manage to survive while keeping enforcing the production of ideas in the wider context. Not by broadening the focus or their art medium, but in fact by consciously placing their practice in specific artistic areas. They are focused, but also at the same time very open and consciously engaged in interdisciplinary fields.

This can be seen as an evidence of a development of how art practice has been seen and applied after 1998: the scope of art practice has been broadened and expanded by including other disciplines as tools of observations and involving many practitioners from various fields who do not only serve as collaborators, but also as creators in the artistic practice.

The shift The rapid progress of information dissemination and technological innovation in this period has also empowered the awareness of networking among artists. A number of artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; initiatives have been very active in building networks within the art scene in Indonesia and internationally. They organize art projects that involve neighboring communities and various artists from the local and from abroad, offering ideas that both reposition and change the previous power structure of the art scene. The map of the art scene is slowly shifting. It also confirms that arts initiatives can grow everywhere as long as it is relevant and suitable with the context of the local society in concern. These initiatives develop to function as hubs that can keep maintaining the ideas, desires, excitement, imaginations, dreams and friendship. They have the ability to read, decipher and negotiate social realities, and are able to be spaces that continually rediscover their relevance and rethink their own needs and positions in the contemporary social context. Simultaneously, these art initiatives expand their spatial consciousness into a broader public. For some initiatives that have survived for some time to build their own directions and traditions, they have come to a phase that can no longer be seen as an effort to open, claim, facilitate space or serve as a substitute that fills the gaps of the art infrastructure, but furthermore, they have developed into institutions that have proven public influence.

Artistic and social practice What the initiatives have been working on is very interesting to be observed deeper, especially in the context of blending individual/collective artistic production and public work as I mentioned above. The range of activities, such as workshops, residencies, festivals, music events, film screenings, creative space facilitation, discussion, research, documentation, book and magazine publication, websites are actually already common formats. Yet, each of the programs is a manifestation of the combination of artistic practice (vision, statement, artistic production) and social practice (public work, education, distribution of knowledge). Such things, again, do not only make the initiatives different from their predecessors, but also place them in a strategic position, because they strengthen two factors: First as social and artistic practice that constantly change and explore, and second taking up the role as a supporting system that has not been filled by government institutions, which exist but fail to optimize its position to be vital and articulate. This, directly or indirectly, has influenced the strategies of government institutions to be more open for the existence and contribution of local independent initiatives that are more relevant in implementing their public role. The collectives have become a knowledge sharing and transformation platform for different people and practices that last intensively and continuously. Collaborators and members have woven artistic collaboration and exchanges of ideas that are organic in nature. The relationships have grown on both individual and communal (organizational) level, through diverse activities and approaches. All of these forms of collaborations could happen because of the intention and basic impulse to share, collaborate, and exchange ideas and friendship. This pattern has also been accompanied by the need to create cross-disciplinary artistic collaboration. An artistic practice could not exist without involving other fields of knowledge

‘I want to learn’. Exhibition view. SuperSub – on collectivism, Den Frie – Centre of Contemporary Art, 2016. Photo: Jacob Crawfurd

that take part in constructing various discourses and social practices. These forms of collaboration are conducted by recognizing the functions and needs of each party without emphasizing other interests. These processes always use the opportunity to share the knowledge among the communities so that they can fulfill the need of network development. A fact shows that differences of focus and interest have played a significant role in constructing the forms of relations amongst the initiatives. It’s worth noting that every relation undertakes a specific dynamic and characteristic. It is an effort to look back at the various forms of collaborations that happen both locally and internationally.

Networks as survival strategy A constant and intense artistic practice and negotiation with the state, privates and the surroundings have shaped learning processes: Finding a strategy to survive with all the limitations and benefits of local resources and uncertain things that always have to be faced. Sources of knowledge and experiences are also taken from ways to survive that includes networking either informal or instutionalised. A network as one way to survive. A formation of networks among art collectives and initiatives from several different cities with similar visions build the platforms for exchanging knowledge, developing artistic strategy and inspiring each other. It becomes a forum or a platform that can strengthen the bargaining power of these organisations in the wider social, cultural, and political context. The consideration in building up networks as an expansion of learning activities, as well to enrich the knowledge resource. In developing the regional network project is almost impossible without seeing the local network in each country, that surely have been developed in other ways, formally and informally. The regional network plays an important role in supporting and mediating the local network in each country. Imagine the regional network as an extension network of the local network. The regional network is developed and formed while considering how to support the local network. By this constellation both networks will find its role, position, relate and be relevant to each other. The path to a non-centric network, one that is based on collaboration and horizontal partnership is obviously a long and winding one. During this time, the various form of collaboration that was done between groups and organizations build an uncentralized network, based on collaboration and horizontal partnerships, all this would have a lot of forms of cooperation carried out between institutions that will also involve formal infrastructure of various disciplines.

In the end it can form a network that consists of small units that moves and vibrant in every local and intensively interconnected. It can also provide sufficient content or issues to share that each network members can relate to and feels relevant in each local context. It makes each member have stronger reasons to share or discuss a certain issues. The network become a platform conducting a mapping of what is the relevant and important issues regionally and furthermore develop it into a bigger discourse by producing, sharing and distributing the knowledge as an important contribution in the region.

New knowledge With the onset of the cross and the exchange of practices and knowledge have made a collective space as a forum for gathering a wide range of knowledge, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a process of merging. In the process of realization and artistic practice a process of merging and fusion knowledge begins. This knowledge shuttle through experienced together and simulated through the events and experiences. A lot of speculation is done in daily practice because the situations often face uncertainty, in terms of funding, time and human resources. The courage to speculate in all the uncertainties becomes a luxury. Failure and success have the same value as important in the process. Accepting failure, as part of the process, becomes the experience and knowledge that provides learning continuously. Diverse academic backgrounds of the members of the collective and the intensity of the meeting creating a new space and ideas, it propagates knowledge and become a place of learning for all involved. Sources of new knowledge rediscovered through intense, sporadic, spontaneous meetings, and even through manageable conflict.

The collectives become an open educational platform based on the desire to share, and are in nature non-centralized. There is a lot of tacit knowledge deriving from this practice that has to be formulated for better accessibility and replicable. The hybrid and experience-based knowledge that has spread and extended through artistic practices, events and engagements have liberated knowledge production and distribution from the power of the elite.

Ade Darmawan: Artist, curator and director. Studied at Indonesia Art Institute (I.S.I) Graphic Art Department. From 1998, two-years residency at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2000 he founded Ruangrupa, an artists’ initiative, with five other artists from Jakarta. Since 2013, artistic director, Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia.

‘Collective = school’. Exhibition view. SuperSub – on collectivism, Den Frie – Centre of Contemporary Art, 2016. Photo: Jacob Crawfurd

Unsustainable Privileges in an Age of Our Own Making? By Solvej Helweg Ovesen

“We do not like to talk about national culture and the king and the kind, because we have not done this since the occupation. But the thing is that the refugee crisis has put something critical in perspective. Until very recently Sweden and Germany had a different attitude towards being a nation than we have in Denmark – and now allow me to say ‘we’, although someone will probably disagree with me. We see a country as a product of its history. The Swedes on the other hand, they have argued that a country is the sum of the people living in it at a given time. We believe that the Danes are entitled to Denmark. A national right. And that means that sometimes it is Noah’s Ark. Those aboard the ship are saved, and the others, they drown.” – Søren Pind, Minister of Justice, Denmark, interview in Zetland, 2016.

“We can’t immunize our way out of the current state of global upheaval. As a country, I think Denmark should take the lead here. Everything

indicates that there will be many more refugees from now on. Just think about climate refugees, the kind of refugees we could end up being ourselves. (...) But we also need to realise that we ourselves are part of the global movements we’re currently witnessing. (...) You could say that the current refugee crisis is directly or indirectly linked to Danish foreign policy and Denmark’s active participation in a range of conflicts in the Middle East. The point is that it has become more and more obvious that the misfortune of others is often related to our own actions (...). Immunisation against migrants as a scapegoat, cultural and historical canons, and the mere praise of ‘Danish-ness’ doesn’t solve any problems.” – Henrik Vigh, Anthropologist, Denmark, interview in Age Age of Our Own Making Reader, 2016

The art project “An Age of Our Own Making” reflects on the current position of Denmark in a global network of interconnected responsibilities in terms of ecology, migration and decolonialisation. It is unfolded in three separate exhibition parts, Reflection I-III, that open one after the other in three different Danish cities. Reflection 1, ‘The Life of Materials. On Another Nature and Ecology’, interrogates the Western notion of ecology, as well as the capitalocene and its logic of circulating goods globally. Through public sculptures and installations in the city of Holbæk, this exhibition reflects on the effects of consumer actions as well as the life of materials, which exist beyond our perception. The second reflection, ‘The Route that Tempts the Traveler to Test Gravity—Notes on the Paradigm of Immunization’, relates to current political issues such as free movement versus isolation and over-protection and also ideas of physical freedom, and how these issues leave imprints on man, physically and

mentally. This reflection is a performance programme that takes place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde and the Roskilde Festival portraying the body as a site within nationalist politics. Finally, the third reflection, ‘An Age of Our Own Making—On Agency and Enacting Citizenship’, an exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, looks into the possibilities of creating, claiming or using space as forms of enacting citizenship. Be it real or virtual, the manifestations that make space political or give a lost, deserved or forgotten meaning back to a specific space will play a central role. The project invites everyone to reflect on how we want to co-exist, along with the non-human, in this world – beyond current tendencies of overprotection and unsustainable privilege.

Reflection I: The Life of Materials. Another Nature and Ecology Have civilisations like Denmark created the anthropocene and environmental colonialism? How can we perceive the materials we are surrounded by differently? In order to see objects and materials differently than we are used to, we need to activate the perception of materials: To see materials and objects in a different light than capitalism offers. Some materials and objects are not seen or perceived, because they are so “normal” to us, subordinate to us, that they disappear – be it things in the category of trash or raw materials. Yet, they may be essential to our understanding of how the world functions, to how we understand our culture. Only when an artwork, for example, presents a material in a different way, we may see it and order it anew, perceive it differently. An example of this could be when an artist like Ibrahim Mahama, who is part of this public space exhibition in Holbæk, raises giant sails of collaged ‘fourth hand’ jute sacks in a so-

cial housing area, where many migrants live, to combine the subjects of circulation of material and humans. The artist and architect Eko Prawoto, who is also a part of the exhibition, emphasises the soul of a site, the material – and its history – as well as the local user-community in his architectural installations. These are inspired by organic shapes like conch shells or leaves, which he interprets with a strong focus on geometry. Prawoto builds with organic bamboo bought from locals in the rural areas outside Yogyakarta in Indonesia. Bamboo is an extremely resilient construction material. Historically is has always been used in Indonesia, but during Dutch colonialism it was banned. For Prawoto, the construction itself and the activities it will house mark the essential relationship between an understanding of nature, the presence of a material and the spirituality at the seaside in Holbæk. In these described artworks the materials of jute (Mahama) and bamboo (Prawoto) are presenting their own intrinsic qualities on the backdrop of a wrenched relation between humans and what is thought of as material/objects. A relationship historically influenced by capitalism, colonisation and migration.

Reflection II: The Route That Tempts the Traveler to Test Gravity. Notes on the Paradigm of Immunisation Do we live in a post-migrant, post-categorical society and transcultural chaos? The creative task of today is to imagine and practise a community with sharing of North European privileges, the privileges of the Danes. But how do we do that? One of the greatest paradoxes of globalization is undoubtedly the fact that it expects of itself to be semi-permeable in reality. This semi-permeability in essence refers to that ability for certain things, especially goods, to flow freely, while peoples’ movements and the flow of religious or philosophical

concepts more often that not are expected to flow unidirectional or with massive hindrances in the other direction. It is the contradiction between ‘social circulation’ and ‘immunisation’ amongst human beings that is prominent in our contemporary western and non-western societies that takes centre stage in the series of performances in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde and the Roskilde Festival. This reflection is focused on the dilemma of migration as it is perceived in- and outside the Danish borders. Henrik Vigh describes it as follows: “On the one hand, migration is often spectacular – i.e. obvious in its otherness, its way of dressing, the colour of its skin, etc. On the other hand, migration is seen as a spectral hazard, an impalpable threat, with the migrants who enter Denmark bringing ideas and beliefs with them that spread in a way we find difficult to assess and therefore don’t really know how to relate to. In this sense, you could say that the Danish government and parts of the Danish population are looking for some kind of immunisation, a way to protect themselves, and that the search for it appears to be coming increasingly desperate and extreme.” 1 From a contemporary example on the State of Refugeeness and immunisation strategies, one cannot oversee the quandary that arose in 2015, as thousands of refugees from Syria fluxed into Europe. In Denmark in particular, curiosity arose when the refugees occupied the highway from Roedby, Denmark, passing on to Sweden chanting “Malmo, Malmo” or as one father put it: “We do not want to stay here, we

1. Solvej Helweg Ovesen, Interview (conducted in Danish) with Henrik Vigh, “Displaced without Moving”, An Age of Our Own Making (reader), the Greenbox, 2016

know we are not welcome!” After this incident the borders between Sweden and Denmark as well as between Germany and Denmark that had until then been freeway became a control territory. A fortress. This in the context of the state-run campaign to pronounce Denmark unattractive for foreigners. A strategy of over-immunisation? The wide range of performances in this chapter of the exhibition ‘The Route that Tempts the Traveler to Test Gravity: Notes on the Paradigm of Immunisation’ were done by 10 artists and artist groups. Here I can unfortunately only highlight a few of the participating artists.

Bernard Akoi-Jackson’s participatory performance “…it’s imperative, staying put, put into globalized imperative contexts, is imperative…” in the old city hall in Roskilde (Byens Hus) highlighted the pitfalls of the practical administration of immigration laws and the language used in such bureaucratic contexts. The performance pointed at the absurdities of state administration procedures as a form of national self-protection against migration. The artist duo Ali A-Fatlawi and Wathiq Al-Ameri reflected and challenged prejudices against Arab cultures, the fear and expectations of terrorism, border-crossing situations and the psychological pressure expressed in physical gestures. The mortal as part of everyday life is also an important subject expressed in their performance “We have been waiting for you” at The Museum for Contemporary Art in Roskilde, 2016, dealing with masculinity, cynicism and war acts and the role of memory and the musealisation of lost lives in war zones. In their other performance “Pavilion of Iraq” they set up at the Roskilde Festival, Al-Fatlawi and Al-Ameri created a lived circumstance in a tent with a TV broadcasting Iraqi news and music, and opened for dialogue with the audience. In the performance ‘X marks the Spot’, the artist duo MwangiHutter explores the idea of “self” and of mutation of the self through others in the making of a human image of the Danish flag. Their interest lay in creating a common voice, while questioning the stable definition of the self and the collective – in terms of bodies and histories. The participatory performance brought together 150 volunteers, who wrapped themselves in black and red coloured gauze, as a symbolism of a human Danish flag. The performance opens the devious associations connected to this national symbol and the status of nationalism in Denmark. Also the idea of featuring Aman Mojadidi’s Immunization Clinic at the Roskilde Festival relates to this crisis of migration in Europe, in this case Denmark, referring to the notion of immunisation: What (and in this case who) do we choose to immunise

ourselves against? The performative installation was a tent clinic where medical staff working behind desks dropped liquid tinctures under the visitors’ tongue. Their choice of “vaccine” revealed whether they were either with or against the racist, anti-immigrant policies of the current Danish government or the Danish People’s Party. The visitors could choose to be vaccinated against fear of Islam, loss of identity or poverty.

Reflection III: An Age of Our Own Making. On Agency and Enacting Citizenship Is agency key to human recognition of itself in the world? How can a country like Denmark grow in terms of the use of urban space with the competences of all the people who live in the country?

MwangiHutter: ‘X marks the Spot’, performance at Roskilde Festival 2016. Photo: Jacob Crawfurd.

When asked about her understanding of the concept ‘enacting citizenship’, the Italian-Australian thinker and philosopher Rosi Braidotti proposed that the act of citizenship is whatever might increase one’s capacity to act or intervene in the world. She goes as far as saying that this action, like any productive and creative mode of intervention, even when it might seem negative, for example acts of resilience, resistance, protest, even civil disobedience are indeed models of understanding how citizenship can be enacted. It goes without saying that the involvement of third parties to strengthen others’ capacities to act or intervene in the world, in far-ranging ways from subtle actions in the quotidian to civil disobedience, are also a means of enacting citizenship. In an age of global renegotiation of relations, i.e. a period in which different cultures, religions, philosophies, spaces and histories of peoples from all four corners of the globe are being re-calibrated in an effort to find common ground, it is important to reflect even more on what it means to be, to act, to challenge the concept of citizenship, especially beyond the context of the nation state. What is the civic duty to a state that the other way around then protects them? In the aforementioned interview, Braidotti, paraphrasing Hannah Arendt, called the act of citizenship an act of enormous love for the world. Artists in this part of the exhibition reflect on this question through their actions. In their works “Jakarta Stories”, Tita Salina & Irwan Ahmett tackle the daily realities of the megacity Jakarta, with more than 15 million inhabitants and a poor infrastructure, as it offers spontaneous interactive ways on how to survive in the city and trigger the creativity of citizens. They explore ‘organic’ strategies and playful interventions to respond to urban issues, endless pollution, unsolved problems and celebrate chaos in the guise of development. The public intervention and performance “1001st Island – The Most Sustainable Island in Archipelago” is a giant floating island of trash that the artists collect and build in Copenhagen. Here, by creating a garbage island that floats in the canal, Nyhavn, in front of Kunsthal Charlottenborg, they

react to the rising sea levels and the grand garbage patches in our seas as a space. The patch becomes inhabitable and a dystopian extra-urban-deviate space of ironic last saviour. Kamal Aljafari’s film and installation “Recollection” is a conglomeration of excerpts, stills, and footage material from Israeli and American films shot in the split city of Jaffa between the 1960s and 1990s. Jaffa became a place to create fictional narratives of Israel on top of emptied Palestinian ruins, leading to the erasure of Palestinian histories and presents not only in reality, but also in fiction. In “Recollection”, Aljafari engages in acts of re-erasure, which one might also call acts of re-emergence, and what he calls enacting “cinematic justice,” as he takes out the Israeli frontline actors to give space to the people (both Palestinians and Iraqi Jews who were settled in the city) who appear par hazard in the background, the involuntary walkers-on and passers-by in the films. “Recollection” thereby is a re-enactment of histories and citizenship through a re-assemblage of space and memories. Moshekwa Langa’s work unfolds in a total installation of a series of drawings, collages, and installation and moving images exploring the topic of temporary cities and urban planning. His beacon-dragged drawings/paintings are documents/documentations of him driving through areas of his childhood in South Africa with the material attached behind the vehicle, physically collecting the memory of these places from the gravel and mud roads. The resulting taints, tracks, and damage will be the beacon for that road/ that area/ that place. Ibrahim Mahama’s outdoor jute sack installation does not only cover Kunsthal Charlottenborg’s outside wall towards Nyhavn. Instead it creates and transforms the huge urban site and space. His transformation of the forefront of the exhibition venue tells the stories of flow of commodities like cocoa and coffee (the former use of the sacks now collaged hanging from the roof top), conditions of production in his home Ghana and elsewhere. Stories of the hands that touched the jute bags, as they travel from Africa to the Americas, Europe or Asia. The markings of the jute bags

that symbolise ownership, place of departure, destination or some other relevant information, then become scarification and ritual markings, a temporary monument for the kind of primary labour that does not take place in Denmark anymore. The bags are transformed into archaeological material and the sites they enclose become archaeological sites. An olfactory element of the installation is not to be disregarded. Depending on the former content of the sacks – coffee, cocoa, coal, beans, rice etc. – the sacks testify to their various utilisations through the smells they emanate. In transforming and re-shaping spaces with these sacks, Mahama touches upon topics as the politics of space, reflects on labour and processes of economic transformations, commerce, migration and not least the spirituality of certain spaces. As a common tendency the involved artists in all three reflections as part of An Age of Our Own Making seem to question – whether they know of these or not – the given ‘entitlements’ not only of the Danes as mentioned in the first quote by Søren Pind, but on a global scale. The entitlement to the understanding of ecological life forms, to territory as well as to citizenship. Could Denmark take pride in being an innovative engine for the meeting between nationalists, decolonisers and internationalists? A meeting, a dialogue that lead to a future societal model that based on historical welfare experience, intensifies the redistribution of privileges?

Solvej Helweg Ovesen: Independent curator, Denmark/Germany. Curator with Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung of the Images exhibition series ‘An Age of Our Own Making – Reflection I-III’ in Holbæk City, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, the Roskilde Festival and Kunsthal Charlottenborg.

Sammy Baloji: ‘Untitled #13, 2006 & ‘Frise Obus’, 2016. An Age of Our Own Making, Reflection I, Holbæk Harbour, 2016. Photo; Joe Kniesek.

ART LAB: Curatorial collaboration as shared gesture By Charlotte Bagger Brandt

Despite the fact that the Internet has made us all more transparent and connected, I am concerned about the lack of curatorial methods for genuine, face-to-face conversation and collaboration. To address this concern I have been engaged in developing a framework for collaboration that can bring people from different geographical and socio-economical contexts together on a more intimate and social scale than what Google, Facebook and Skype allow. ART LAB is a yearlong ‘test site’ for such a collaboration. It involves the active participation of several young curators from all over the world. Based on the concept of sharing, the idea is to create a tentative, free space for them to be thinking, producing and realizing projects together. From my side emphasis is put on the process rather than on product, and I insist on keeping it slow pace, open-ended and rather unstructured. I want to highlight the quality of cooperating with no appointed destination. In ART LAB there is no obvious navigation systems and routes will appear along the way – depending on the participants’ inspirations, interests and backgrounds.

Courage and curiosity needed To ensure this rhizome-like framework ART LAB is shaped like a baton. Curators from the first lab pass on reflections and ideas to the next, and so forth. This unconditional ‘sharing and adopting’ strategy involves loss of control on all levels. Accepting this is definitely quite challenging for the participants (it require lots of time, spaciousness and responsiveness!) but in the end it is worth the struggle when all individual assets are utilized and compressed into a common. The first lab took place in March 2016 with the participation of six curators based respectively in Jakarta, Copenhagen, New York, Bamako, Kathmandu and Cairo. They didn’t know each other beforehand, and when joint together in Copen-

The idea to use collage making as visual mode of thinking, collaborating and presenting knowledge rose from the encounter with Vibe Bredahl’s large-scale collage, displayed at Rønnebæksholm.

hagen the only thing they shared was basically a curatorial practice concentrated on social and political matters, and for the most part an urge to work in public space. Now they had to collaborate across differences. I wouldn’t say they were forced to, since they had approved the invitation to participate – but the fact is, they didn’t really know what they said yes to – to some extent the same applied to me. This openness is a central part of the ART LAB, and it takes a good amount of courage and curiosity to deal with.

Intensive program During the first week we took the participants through a quite intensive program exposing them to selected parts of the Danish art scene. They met artists, curators and visited a handful of institutions and art spaces. Discussions and conversations arose about the role of institutions, the meaning of informality, community participation, artistic freedom etc. In between these popup debates they worked on small assignments and projects, one of them resulted in our Handy Lunch. Here the curators served finger food for a public crowd while performing as living napkins – free for the eating audience to touch or wipe hands in. In the end of the lab we invited them on a short residency at the kunsthalle Rønnebæksholm where they would be translating all the accumulated knowledge and thoughts into a form that could be handed over to the second art lab team – something that could keep the conversation going. After three days they came back with a spot on idea on how to share their experiences. They had taken the chaotic, floating framework of the art lab concept and condensed it into a digital collage – a visual mapping of the test site they tried out together.

Collage means glue The curators explained the concept of the collage like this: “The collage is an assemblage of reflections, images, and stories that we have collected individually and as a group throughout our time at the Art Lab. The collage serves multiple purposes: it is an archive of our experiences, a methodology for our curatorial collaboration, and an inspirational yet erratic platform for the next line of participants. Collage gets its name from the French word for glue and describes a broad range of art-making techniques that rely on re-appropriating previously made images and materials into new compositions. It is a juxtaposition of disparate elements without commitment to explicit syntactical relations.” By sharing a map to navigate the next lab will probably be spared some of the hassle of getting lost and finding way, which seems to have been the overall challenge in lab one. Transforming the art lab method into aesthetic material the further route seems to be somehow pointed out. Personally, I see a potential of expanding the visual collage into a concrete, functional tool for curatorial collaboration, which was also suggested by the group. This, of course, is totally up to the next art lab team to decide, and maybe it will go in a completely different direction. I kind of hope it will.

Charlotte Bagger Brandt: Independent Danish curator, mediator and artistic counselor educated from History of Art and Ideas in Denmark and Germany. Since 1999 Bagger Brandt has curated, conceptualized and produced contemporary art exhibitions, seminars and other art related projects. In 2009 Bagger Brandt initiated Råderum – Office for Contemporary Art.

87 FACTS ON ART LAB #1 ART LAB is part of Images 16 and goes on throughout 2016. The international participants of ART Lab #1 were pointed out by the CKU international advisory board and by CKU partners in their focus countries. The two Danish based participants where chosen from an open call, that was announced through the Royal Danish Art Academy, Factory, Rønnebæksholm and Råderum. The participants in ART LAB #1: Riksa Afiaty from the art collective Ruangrupa, based in Jakarta, Indonesia; Nischal Oli, curator and art manager, based in Kathmandu, Nepal; Igo Diarra, curator at the cultural center Medina in Bamako, Mali; Sarah Defrawy urban researcher, based in Cairo, Egypt; Katrine Bregengaard, curator, based in New York, US, and Copenhagen, Denmark; and Lena Mech, Copenhagen Game Collective, based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Chapter 3: Voices from Images 16 seminar

Merging art worlds

In March 2016, CKU gathered artists, curators, museum directors and scholars to the Images 16 seminar about curating and communicating art from countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The aim of the seminar was to share thoughts, approaches and positions explored by all partners of Images 16. The seminar reflected on some of the central curatorial practises, aesthetic considerations and artistic discourses that shaped the Images 16 program. The seminar held at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts included presentations, panel discussions and round-tables where curators, institutions and collaborators involved in Images 16 contributed with their perspectives on the themes of curating art from non-Western countries, the changing dynamics of the (art) world, the engagement of audiences in a broader international discourse and the role of the Danish art scene in this regard.

91 PANELISTS/SPEAKERS Ade Darmawan (Artistic director, Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia) Alia Rayyan (Director, Al Hoash, Palestine) Birgitte Kirkhoff Eriksen (Director, Museum for Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark) Brian Worm Ahlquist (Head of Culture and Leisure Department, Holbæk Municipality, Denmark) Charlotte Bagger Brand (Director, Raaderum/ART LAB, Copenhagen, Denmark) Christina Papsø Weber (Leader, Images 16) Gavin Clarke (Images Lab Program Manager, CKU) Henrik Broch-Lips (Artistic Director, Kunsthalle Nord, Aalborg, Denmark) Igo Lassana Diarra (Cultural Producer, Bamako, Mali) Katarina Stenbeck (Ph.D. student, Royal Danish Academy for Fine Art) Karen Grøn (Director, Trapholt, Kolding, Denmark) Katrine Bregengaard (Curator, Copenhagen, Denmark) Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg (Artistic Director, Den Frie) Lena Mech (Artist, Copenhagen, Denmark) Mia Yates (Scholar, Copenhagen, Denmark) Nischal Oli (Curator, Siddhartha Foundation, Nepal) N’Goné Fall (Independent Curator, Senegal) Rasmus Vestergaard (Director, Kunsthalle DIAS, Vallensbæk, Denmark). Riksa Afiaty (Curator, Ruangrupa, Jakarta, Indonesia) Sarah Defrawy (Ph.D., Mahatat Contemporary Art, Cairo, Egypt) Sarah Rifky (Independent Curator, Cairo, Egypt) Sebastian Stryhn Kjeldtoft (Journalist, Copenhagen, Denmark) Solvej Ovesen (Independent curator, Denmark/Germany)

How to be international By Amalie Frederiksen

If we want an open, tolerant and better society, the Danish art scene has to implement a real international approach in terms of how it talks and acts. That was the overall appeal made at the roundtable discussion “Reframing the Discourse”. The participants came up with four suggestions of how to do it. While Denmark is isolating itself from global reality on a political level, it has become even more important for the art scene to do the opposite. That is, keep insisting on the fact that it cannot separate itself from the rest of the world, but is shaped by and dependent on it. Although many curators and institutions probably agree on this, the discourse, practice and methods surrounding the art scene still doesn’t seem to get rid of it’s obsolete obsession with nationality, ethnicity, country and continent. As if these terms still define much about the individual artist’s expression or agenda. Why is it so difficult for the Danish art scene to act according to its theoretical convictions of being internationally oriented? The answer may lie in the need for a complete reframing of the common discourse and conventional curatorial methods.

At the closing roundtable at the Images 16 seminar, six curators and a journalist coming from different backgrounds joined forces to discuss reasons and possible solutions to this insistent difficulty. As pointed out by moderator N’Goné Fall all of them are used to look 360 degrees from within their field. That said, they have different ideas of what it really means to be working internationally.

Find a new language One of the main problems lies within the understanding of the term international. According to Katarina Stenbeck it is a word that is used interchangeably but most often confined to a European perspective. “When Danish art institutions talk about so called ‘international art’ they don’t refer to art coming from all over the world, but to art coming from a European or Western context.” And if curators and institutions happen to look beyond European borders, it often ends up with exhibitions focusing on art from a specific country or continent, in an attempt to challenge the audience’s preconceived notions of a certain culture. Following this tendency a consideration regarding the curator’s discursive responsibility came up. According to the panel this responsibility goes far beyond just making art projects for an art audience. Things such as the exhibition title and the curatorial text shape and effect people’s minds and behaviours, and thus have a huge impact on how people understand themselves, the world and other cultures. This responsibility has to be taken seriously. Looking towards our neighbour Sweden, both Katarina Stenbeck and Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg have observed a completely different tradition – politically and historically – of opening up, and including people with a non-Swedish background. The reason for that, they argue, is that Sweden has a totally different attitude towards the rest of the world, and an explicit language of how to address these questions.

Consider content first As mentioned already, being international of course has to involve working with artists and curators from the whole planet – not just Europe. But being international is not just about opening up and including other people and cultures. As Alia Rayyan points out, “Everyone can invite a Palestinian artist. Being international in that sense is the easiest thing in the world. What is crucial is that you ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing.” With reference to the upcoming exhibition at DIAS The Hacking Urban Reality Series – a collaborator project between DIAS and two Indonesian curators – N’Goné Fall asks this question to Rasmus Vestergaard. Why did he choose to focus exactly on Indonesia when making this project? “The decisions to work together with two Indonesian curators on this project, had nothing to do with nationality”, Rasmus explains. For him content and concept is far more important than any question of inclusion and representation. Working with digital art requires him to look beyond Denmark in any project. And when it comes to The Hacking Urban Reality Series, looking to Indonesia for curatorial collaboration came as a consequence of the fact that the use of digital platforms like Twitter and Facebook are much more interesting there. “People in Indonesia use digital media to make things happen, to make a difference in their local reality.” The hope was to transfer this hacking strategy into a Danish local context – to let artists hack and penetrate Danish systems and daily lives.

Focus on your local context Also for Alia, the local context is extremely important, and should always come before any consideration of nationality. First of all curators and institutions should ask themselves what changes they want to see in their own society, and ask how their working method corresponds to this vision? International means nothing if it is just about bringing in

international artists. You have to think about how it can confront social problems, she says. Working in Jerusalem for a Palestinian art organisation she has been engaged in several international art projects, but as the social situations have not changed the organisation has started to question the whole art system: “Doing what we have done so far, nothing has changed on the ground – in our society. Actually things have just gone worse. So we are now trying to work with new formats and methods, working with both local and international artists within our own context and circumstances. I think this is something that should happen here as well. Everyone here in Denmark is so angry with the current government, but you have to realize, it didn’t happen out of nothing. Something went wrong – totally! So the whole question about art, society and responsibility must be asked now. When you are in a crisis of course it is a challenge, but it is also a chance to think about your local situation and working strategies. I think you have to ask yourself what you are doing, and why you are doing it, because right now you are smashed against the wall.”

Try different methods Following up on Alia’s Denmark-Jerusalem comparison Charlotte Bagger Brandt brings focus to the urgency of developing and implementing new curatorial methods. Working more with processes, thoughts and methods on ‘sharing globally’, this is something she as a curator has been engaged in for years. But now, as the situation in Denmark heats up politically and socially, she finds this task even more important. “Of course curators and institutions must confront global issues on a thematic level, but we have to do more than that. We have to get out of the ivory tower and start to involve society and it’s structures in a broader sense. I know institutions and museums struggle with laws and restrictions, but we have to change direction.”

Katarina Stenbeck agrees with this observation. In a similar vein she sees great possibilities in using the structures within the institutions to make the changes we want to see: “Instead of looking at funding problems and restrictions as obstacles, we should think of the institutions as tools which can be used to frame the real questions and address real problems. Of course there are challenges and limitations working from within an institution, but we do have a lot of opportunities as well”.

Amalie Frederiksen: Curator and writer. Partner at Råderum – Mobile Office for Contemporary Art.

Summary of the closing roundtable at the Images 16 seminar with independent curator Charlotte Bagger Brandt from Raaderum, independent curator and Ph.D. student at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art Katarina Stenbeck, curator Rasmus Vestergaard from DIAS, Digital Interactive Art Space, independent curator Alia Rayyan from Palestinan Art Court al Hoash, journalist Sebastian Stryhn Kjeldtoft from the newspaper Information, and curator Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg from Den Frie – Centre of Contemporary Art.

The responsibility is yours, institutions! By Mia Yates

Even significant and ambitious institutions in the Danish art scene have surprisingly not â&#x20AC;&#x201C; if ever â&#x20AC;&#x201C; presented artists from beyond the West. The reasons for this vary. While some institutions have certain national obligations to prioritize, others do not have the finances to invite foreign artists or the resources to engage with foreign art scenes in a qualified way. Furthermore and importantly, there hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily been an attention to the lack of global art in their programs. One thing is for sure. There is no lack of will to try something new and no lack of enthusiasm towards the artists and curators that these institutions have collaborated with during their Images 2016 projects. In fact there is an overwhelming sense of gratefulness in terms of the art, knowledge and new perspectives that the international collaborations have brought to the Danish institutions. The result is a broad range of projects and an increased awareness, interest in and insight into new international art scenes and emerging artists.

The party killers: Bureaucracy and finances Interestingly, the main challenges that these Danish institutions have faced with their international collaborations have nothing to do with cultural or national difference. The challenges have mainly been related to practical circumstances (bureaucracy and finances) or to professional differences between external curators and local institutions – and thus have nothing to do with being “non-western”. In fact, an important conclusion to be made from the thoughts and comments of these panel speakers (and experienced industry people) is that the category “non-Western art” has no apparent relevance. Artworks made in countries beyond the West cannot be joined into one category in any meaningful way. The dichotomy of the West vs. non-West needs to be left behind.

Leave the dichotomies In the panel we sought out to explore the challenges of exhibiting “non-Western art” in a Danish context. Well, there aren’t any challenges related to the “non-Western” part specifically. Approaching art from beyond the West demands the same individual art theoretical and perceptive approaches as that from within. Surely some artworks need translation or advanced dissemination in order to communicate meaningfully to certain audiences. But it usually has more to do with the complexities of the topic and the form of the work (video, sound work, relational art, etc.) than it has to do with cultural, national or continental differences. To abandon the dichotomous terminology and understanding does not mean to deny cultural differences or to ignore historical context. It merely represents an understanding of cultural difference as a general social and cultural plurality that exists across as well as within nations and therefore cannot be spoken of as oppositional.

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Feras Louis: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The route from Syria to Denmarkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Courtesy the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde.

Development aid and artistic exchange: An unhappy match? Some panel speakers have carefully raised critical questions regarding the meeting point between development agendas and art projects in relation to the Images program. The fact that certain countries are chosen for the art festival purely because they are financial receivers of Danish aid is problematic. It implies an inequality from the outset and can stand in the way of artistic criticality and quality. This feeds into a larger discussion related to development aid more generally, but is never the less important because is shows that the dichotomous relationships and old discursive habits that we want to leave behind, are also being maintained through more underlying structures that can only be opposed to a certain extent in the actual exhibition.

Global outlook without CKU However, with the closure of the CKU, there is a new responsibility on the shoulders of the art institutions, as they will have to find their own individual ways of representing a global outlook in their programmes without the support of the CKU. Maybe this is a chance to find new ways of working together internationally and a chance to create new dynamics and discourses in terms of how we work with global art in the Danish art scene. As mentioned, there is no lack of enthusiasm and will. It’s a question of how. And only time will tell whether Danish art institutions will prioritize a global outlook and find new ways of achieving a relevant connection with a wider global art scene.

Mia Yates: PhD Fellow, Aarhus University, freelance writer at Magasinet Kunst.

Pascale Marthine Tayou: ‘When Things Fall Apart’, Installation, 6x10 meters. Exhibition view. Photo: René Mastrup. Courtesy the artist.

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Malene Nors Tardrup and Noor Abu Arafeh: ‘Publishing House: Re-write history’ (2016), Collage, work-in-progress. Exhibition view. Photo: Niels Fabæk. Courtesy the artist and Kunsthal Nord.

Summary of the Images 16 seminar panel debate: Exhibiting non-western art in a Danish context: Institutional perspectives and strategies with Karen Grøn (Trapholt Art Museum), Birgitte Kirkhoff Eriksen (Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde), Henrik Broch-Lips (KUNSTHAL NORD).

Images 16 partners

CAMP

Center for Art on Migration Politics

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Since 1991, Images has presented contemporary art and culture from countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Taking point of departure in the visual art program Images 16, this book reflects on the current state of cultural cooperation, artistic exchange and global art networks. International curators and art historians contribute with their perspectives and artworks from Images 16 exhibitions add colour and nuances to the theme: Curating Global Art.

9 788791 067044 978-87-91067-04-4

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