<nettime> International anti slavery BLM

[Molly Hankwitz]

hi

I am frequently cranky about US and Europe and have Europe envy but that might be nostalgic, but today I find this article below on this big show opening in the Netherlands about artifacts stolen from colonial people and the whole thing about giving them back...and I’m following this story with great interest. I had read about the Dutch govt giving back stuff they’d pillaged. Just as assists are becoming so invisible, right?                                                            

I teach in Art History and the post-colonial discourse has only just begun to heat up after last summer and the civil rights movement. Kathy High had sent me a document called Decentering Whiteness and  I’ve shared it to my colleagues. Its’s focused upon design. But, wondering what other strategies are being used in your worlds to counteract Western imperialist history? 

Maybe there are more bridges between our continents...all this scholarship about the slave trade links us undisputedly, and now to think that BLM would be influential Holland. I’m sorry if that is no longer the name. I have often been jealous that European countries are able to change their names. 

Molly

https://apnews.com/article/europe-race-and-ethnicity-slavery-global-trade-health-bc419a8e4b3c5abed828378ced37fca8

[Brian Holmes]

I agree, it is great to see restitution go from fringe idea 20 years ago to unfolding story today.

There's great work in this direction by Ariella Azoulay, a historian of photography who says the image belongs to the person in it, so give it back. She is dead serious about that, in a way that directly threatens the so-called "universal / aka imperial / museums."

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[d.ga...@new-tactical-research.co.uk]

Hi

I think that some attention needs to be paid to some institutional
changes that occurred in the Netherlands (I don't live there anymore
so some of this maybe behind the curve).

Out of the anti-modern art blood bath of recent years in NL that
was concurrent with the populist ascendancy. This saw the defunding
of historically important contemporary art provision such as De Appel
and Montevideo/Time Based Arts and many others.

Into the vacuum of public provision a number of new project spaces
arose.. one of a number is Framer Framed https://framerframed.nl/en/

that began as a research project founded on critical museology with
a specific post-colonial narrative and a program of exhibitions that
runs counter to the protocols of legitimisation and other forms of
social filters that constitute the international art scene.

Framer Framed for one has received structural funding that would have
been unthinkable in an earlier age.. so just maybe paradoxically
something
progressive emerged out of the institutional decimation.

But I am sure others on the list who live in NL might have more up
to date detail

Best David Garcia

[Eric Kluitenberg]

Hi Molly, all,

Just to chime in briefly from NL. It’s great to see the Dutch national museum for mostly pre-modern visual arts take up this gauntlet and producing a show that extends the rather meagre presentation of NL’s colonial past (and present! – don’t forget, there are still “overseas territories” in Latin America…) in the regular collection display, where only one room and limited number of artefacts is devoted to that colonial past and slave trade.

Still, it feels as not enough and too late. Before I was cleared out of Amsterdam by the forces of gentrification (about two years ago), I was living in the ‘Indische Buurt” (named after the former colonies in SE Asia, roughly what is now called Indonesia), a highly multi-cultural, immigrant neighbourhood, which used to be a disaster zone (the district with the lowest average income in Amsterdam and the only one eligible at the time for EU structure funds). Then, as usual the arts people and ‘experimentals’ moved in (like us), followed by a wave of renovations and expats renting these renovated places at ridiculous prices (4 to 5 times the rent that was collected before). The rest was sold off on the free market, but a lot of housing remained social housing / controlled rent, and typically you find a large immigrant population there, as well as a large contingent of people of Surinam descent.

When in a nearby park the ’Slavery Monument’ (Oosterpark) was revealed the then queen showed up with dignitaries and few token ‘former slaves’ (by family origin), while the police barred off the local Surinam and other population of slavery descent from entering the park and attending the ceremony. The monument itself, meanwhile, was carefully hidden from view  by dense bushes around it, so it would not disturb anyone entering the (English landscape style) park looking for pasture, or a quiet walk (with or without dog).

Emphatically, this was NOT a scandal in NL, no further media reports about it. Only much later was this shameful episode revealed when locals spoke out on local TV channels, after which this was mostly ignored in the wider mainstream. That was only a few years ago. So it is fair to say, there is a looooooooong way to go…

I mentioned before here, that the turnout was massive for #BLM following the ‘intra-institutional’ killing of George Floyd (sadly among many others) and the large scale protest in the US. So yes, I agree with you, that this might be a bridge between our continents, but we must acknowledge that this is only the very beginning.

There’s so much more to say about this, and yes David is right, Framer Framed has lead a wave of new discourse and practice that tries to address this within the cultural  / arts community, and there’s other initiatives, already for many years. The breach here is that a mainstream institution has taken this on. It is an encouraging step, but only the first of many that are needed.

all my bests,

Eric

[Molly Hankwitz]

Brian

And the whole aborigine/first peoples discussion in Australia about not screening or showing the faces of the dead!  Aborigines believe that it strips the deceased of their spirit and, of course, it was all cool at first to want to show ethnographic films and all, but now many have been reclaimed by tribes due to the fact that the persons in them are dead.

typo in my last post - I meant "assets" not 'assists' 

molly

molly hankwitz - she/her

http://bivoulab.org

[p...@voyd.com]

(All beatles puns intended)
In. late January, briefly after my return from 5 years in the UAE, during which time I engaged in tactical media in Central Asia and the Caucasus, started a VR center in Abu Dhabi, and married my life partner, Negin Ehtesabian, who was my collaborator in any number of US/Iran projects through Morehshin Allahyari, who is awaiting the USCIS's call in. Tehran, which is extended by the inequities of the Trump Administration, and separated by the COVID crisis. These are not easy times.

Regardless, Brian wanted my snapshot from afar, which will likely be given in more detail in an in-process book which is similar to Baudrillard's "America" about my time in the UAE, as I feel that the UAE is almost the New America.

The problem is that the situation morphed from 2015 to 2021. I went from someone spending my summers in Canada, to remaining in Asia, digging deep into West and Central Asia, which are (not widely visited by westerners [areas vary]) and paradigmatically radically different than the West, over what I call the EuroHegemonic postcolonial sphere.

I think I will just make indexical comments then unpack them.
When Trump got into office, I began habitually checking CNN, in case there was a sudden nuclear exchange with North Korea or Iran. I did eat at the North Korean restaurant in Dubai on occasion.

Upon Trump's entry into office, it just seemed that much of the world prepared for American Exceprionalism to turn to hegemonic solipsism. Russia took the Crimea, launched cyberattacks, and lavrov began his flavor of what Vamos calls Confusionism. China took the South China ea and began colonizing Central, Asia, mining Bitcoins in Iran, took over the Port of Djbouti and colonizing Africa. What Geert and I foresaw came to pass - a global order breaking into spheres of control, balkanizing the world and vying for control. And my Ugandan taxi driver in Abu Dhabi loved Trump because he said he "spoke his heart", but then this guy liked Mugabe, he said,l for the same reasons.

The standard of living was amazing, and I spent a great deal of time watching the Dubai Future Foundation and their projects. Of course, Westerners can criticise the labor practices (I contextually agree) But there is the outsourcing paradigm to abusive agencies that often give, believe it or not , futures that are better than Nepal or the Subcontinent. The Louvre Abu Dhabi was built while I was there, and it is truly a very real place.

And, since my family is now half Iranian, I see inside the Axis of Evil for what it is; a construct.

Let's talk. I'll give you my biased opinion which is definitely non-Western, but not radical.

Maybe my ideas on why the Arab Spring was just a horr9ble idea.

All my Best.

[p...@voyd.com]

Oh yes, and the throngs of newly minted Chinese Bourgeoisie in West and Central Asia.
And discovering Dungan food in Kyrgyzstan.
And discovering Uyghur artists trying to use AI in Vancouver to make children's books with characters that fool Vommunist Party Ai So no one goes to Reeducation Camps.

 

Cheerio, p+7D!

[Brian Holmes]

Patrick, I am a taker for your perspective.I have been to China, Mongolia and North India, to Lebanon and Armenia, that's the nearest I ever got to the places you talk about. Let's hear more about what it was like to live and work there.