BARE LIVES artist talk and book presentation

About

Within the context of the exhibition BARE LIVES by Mario Rizzi within the frame of UP (Unsustainable Privileges), curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (28. April – 10. Juni 2017)

**The talk will be held in English / Das Gespräch wird in englischer Sprache stattfinden. Für den deutschsprachigen Einladungstext bitte nach unten scrollen** 

During this artist talk and book presentation on the exhibition BARE LIVES by Mario Rizzi, we will be discussing hidden stories and consequences of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ and how they entangled individual political lives and wider geopolitics of the region. What does it mean to be an activist woman and single mother, whose story has been written out of the official narrative of the Tunisian revolution? With reference to the exhibition and book BARE LIVES (2017), we will also discuss the role of women in conflict, as refugees, and as activists and artists more generally. How does one approach the histories and presences of the Yazidi women portrayed by Mario Rizzi? What role do women play in the organization of the everyday in states of exception and camps? How do we reflect our privileges to have a place to work, to live – an everyday? How does one depict the conflicting and unsustainable privileges of refugees in permanent camps vs. sedentary urban dwellers in a city like Berlin? In what ways do poetry and art relate to social change or to mobilising solidarity among the excluded, migrants, or exiled? We welcome you all to a discussion including artistic, anthropological, and activist perspectives from Syria, the Arab diaspora, and Germany. The panelists will be discussing the ongoing exhibition BARE LIVES but also draw on content from the newly released book by the same title, which accompanies the exhibition and contains contributions by Ramy Al Asheq, Charlotte Bank, Tania Canas, Hamid Dabashi, Pia Lauro, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Solvej Helweg Ovesen, and Jonas Tinius. The book is published in collaboration with Archive Books.www.archivebooks.org

Mario Rizzi lives and works in Berlin (Germany). Mario Rizzi’s practice deals with the life of social outsiders, concentrating on collective memories and individual stories. His work has been shown in many international art exhibitions and film festivals and is in prestigious public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. www.mariorizzi.com

Solvej Helweg Ovesen is a curator and cultural studies theoretician She is currently the artistic director of Galerie Wedding together with Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, where the two year long exhibition programme »Post-Otherness Wedding« concluded in 2016. The current two years program »Unsustainable Privileges« (2017-18) at Galerie Wedding continues with an exhibition, performance and theory programme directed by her and Ndikung.

Souad Abbas is a journalist working for several Arabic newspapers. She is editor of the Arabic speaking online newspaper Abwab.eu and project manager for the international humanitarian organisation Danish Refugee Council in Syria and Lebanon.
http://www.abwab.eu/

Charlotte Bank is an art historian and independent curator, living and working between Berlin and Geneva. In her curatorial work she focuses on modern and contemporary artistic practice from the Middle East with a special emphasis on the independent contemporary art scene since 2000 in its global context. In 2012 she established the artistic project space Art-Lab Berlin im iPhonedoctor with the project FORUM for new arab art, a multidisciplinary project focusing on new developments in the art scene(s) of the Arab world and diaspora.

Jonas Tinius, PhD, is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH,www.carmah.berlin), co-funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and based at the Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin. His current research explores how Berlin-based art institutions engage with notions of otherness through critical curatorial strategies. He is convenor of the Anthropology and the Arts Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (with Roger Sansi, Goldsmiths).

More information about the talk and book presentation you'll find on our website: http://galeriewedding.de/bare-lives-artist-talk/