Event overview
FORMER WEST: Who is a “People”? Constructions of the “We”: Public Editorial Meeting. A collaboration between the Department of Art and BAK basis voor actuele kunst Utrecht
FORMER WEST: Who is a “People?: Constructions of the “We”
Public Editorial Meeting
27–28 February 2015
The Department of Art at Goldsmiths College and BAK basis voor actuele kunst kindly invite you to the FORMER WEST Public Editorial Meeting, Who is a “People?” Constructions of the “We,” taking place on Friday and Saturday, 27–28 February 2015 at Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths College, University of London, London. Following two prior editorial meetings in Utrecht (2014) and Berlin (2013), this gathering in London is part of FORMER WEST?s culminating phase, which unfolds over the course of the next two years through a series of open editorial meetings that lead to the realization of the FORMER WEST publication.
The format of the London Public Editorial Meeting consists of a series of presentations and conversations, which serve as entries into a wider trajectory of discussions between writers and the contributing audience. Titled Who is a “People?” Constructions of the “We,” it focuses on the notions of “publics” and “the people,” considering them first and foremost as politico-cultural constructions. Among other questions, the meeting asks: How is a “people” constructed and addressed within culture, the commons, politics, and history in the contemporary postmodern malaise? What is the role of the nation-state within global flows of capital and how can “former West” itself be understood as a concept within the postcolonial constellation?
The meeting follows several distinct but intersecting strands of inquiry and attempts also to locate the proposition of “former West” within the context of London—a locale that harbors a long legacy of postcolonial and racialized entanglements. In asking what is actually and historically implied by the West, not least when accompanied by the prefix “former,” the project proposes that it is possible to think beyond Western hegemony and acknowledges its passing. This historicization departs from the symbolic year of 1989—and the end of a bipolar world—positing that relations of identity and identification must be redescribed and reinscribed anew after these events, which continue to bear consequences for how we conceive of peoples and movements in terms of politics, migration, and cultural production.
If the categories of “visitor,” “viewer,” “spectator,” and “consumer” no longer correspond to the societal structures undergoing transformation, or uphold still-redolent forms of colonialism, how might we construct the figures that make up the collective entity of audiences and publics in today?s Europe? And if the insurgent realities and movements of people who demand a qualitatively different access to culture and decision-making constitute lines of new solidarities and commonalities across the wide spectrum of society, does the notion of the “citizen,” then, still hold its ground when used as point of distinction between those who do and do not hold rights and privileges under the nation-state? Is it helpful to think of these new commonalities in terms of “the people?” How else might we determine the notion of “we” in the newly appearing landscape of culture and politics in Europe?
The public editorial meeting will explore these questions through discussions of the post-colonial legacies of contemporary art in Britain, and the possibilities of a post-racial discourse, proceed through an investigation of global precarity as a new form of class composition, then look into how the people and the popular are invoked through art and politics, consider the many current returns of fascism today, and finally discuss whether a ?formerising? of the West can be productive for a new politics of the people.
Contributors to the meeting include, among others: Tariq Ali (writer and activist, London); Barby Asante (artist, curator, educator, London); Dave Beech (artist, writer, and curator, London); Jan Breman (anthropologist, Amsterdam); Bernadette Buckley (writer and academic, Bristol); Boris Buden (writer, cultural critic, and translator, Berlin); Elvira Dyangani Ose (curator, London); Melissa Gordon (artist, London); Janna Graham (writer, organizer, and educator, Nottingham); Maria Hlavajova (artistic director, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht); Rastko Moc?nik (sociologist, literary theorist, translator, and activist, Belgrade and Ljubljana); Massimiliano Mollona (theorist and writer, London); Andrea Phillips (theorist and organizer, London); Nina Power (philosopher and activist, London); Morgan Quaintance (curator and writer, London); Irit Rogoff (curator and theorist, London); Simon Sheikh (curator and theorist, Berlin and London); Bev Skeggs (sociologist, London); and Harry Weeks (researcher, Edinburgh).
The registration capacity for the meeting is 300 persons. To register, please contact Marlene Haring at: m.haring@gold.ac.uk. We kindly request that you specify whether you plan to attend one or both days of the meeting. In the event that you are able to attend only one day, please state which day you intend to be present.
Video recordings of the Public Editorial Meeting will be made available via the FORMER WEST digital platform at: http://www.formerwest.org.
The activities of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst have been made possible by financial support from the City Council of Utrecht and the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands, as well as generous support from Goldsmiths, University of London, Stichting DOEN, Amsterdam and the European Union?s Creative Europe program.
Venue:
Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre Whitehead Building
Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross, New Cross
London SE14 6NW
United Kingdom
http://www.facebook.com/Former.West
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 27 Feb 2015 | 9:30am - 6:00pm |
Accessibility
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