For many years ago I participated in a show with many writers, acitvists and
artists, the topic was Images of War in Contemporary world,
http://jordancrandall.com/main/+UNDERFIRE/underfire.html
Two small books collected our discussions, Under Fire one and two,
http://www.amazon.com/Jordan-Crandall-Under-Fire-Part/dp/907336261X
It was the French curator Catherine David, the first appointed female
curator at Documenta., who was the chef for Witte de Witt Art Centre in
Rotterdam, Holland, who was behind the show and many others dealing with the
images of the Arabs in the Contemporary World.
She was one of the first Western curators in the world of visual arts trying
to understand how the image of the Arabs was coloured with many prejudges
and ignorance.
Her work with these issues can still be viewed here,
http://www.fundaciotapies.org/site/spip.php?article4543
The last station of her ongoing touring exhibitions was about Iraq and she
invited to Berlin, to Barcelona and to Sweden some of the most interesting
artists and writers from the Iraqui diaspora,
http://www.fundaciotapies.org/site/spip.php?article4543
I curated the Swedish part, connecting it with my own project, Crusading,
http://ceciliaparsberg.se/crusading/about.htm
Ana
On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 9:13 PM, Alan Sondheim <[email protected]> wrote:
I'd love to see work, here, or a show, or something, a
conversation, around these things. At one point a few weeks ago,
I saw an American newscaster preparing for the news, he was
holding back tears, looking shell-shocked -
On Wed, 27 Aug 2014, Ana Vald?s wrote:
by the way, written f?r a Lybian poet, friend of a friend,
some hours ago:
"
Tripoli on fire. I have fled my house after attacks by
rockets. It was
looted & occupied by militias. Things are going for more
chaos."
Now when Gaza is relative calm Tripoli burns...
Ana
On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Alan Sondheim
<[email protected]> wrote:
I want to thank everyone as well, working in these
areas isn't,
for me, like doing art in a way, but trying to
disentangle
anguish. I have no idea how to go anywhere with
this,
politically; I feel hopeless, and the U.S. is a
convoluted mess
of ideologies - not even competing, but isolated
from
each other. Argh! (not the right expletive, but I'm
not sure
what would be!)
Thank you again, Alan
On Wed, 27 Aug 2014, dave miller wrote:
Well done Alan for tackling these subjects. I
agree
artists should not be
silent (and that includes me, but am
struggling to
get my creative act
together at present). But you are an
inspiration to
me - please keep up the
great work!
Ana - I had contact with Opus Dei many years
ago. I
was a student at
manchester University and desperately needed
somewhere to live. All the
student flats and halls had been filled by the
time
I started looking and
the only accommodation the Uni had available
was a
hall of residence run by
the Opus Dei. As a naive 19 year old I was
interviewed by a very stern
spanish man in a brown cloak, dressed like a
monk,
who said I could live
there but I would have to go to mass at 6am
every
morning. I was brought up
as a catholic so it wasn't too alien to me,
and I
was unsure at that stage
of my life if I believed or not, but I turned
them
down as i remember having
very strange feelings about the whole setup,
plus
the mass idea was a
nightmare. Also I knew I couldn't survive in a
place
like that, it felt like
a monastery. But there were people there I
recognised from my course, and I
remember their reaction to me was strange like
I'd
seen them as they really
were.
I've heard a lot of horror stories about Opus
Dei
since and can't believe I
stupidly found myself in that situation.
Your account about being tortured is
fascinating -
heart breaking -
terrifying and very thought provoking. Thanks
for
sharing something so
personal.
cheers dave
On 27 August 2014 18:57, Alan Sondheim
<[email protected]> wrote:
I will read it and I know all of this
and I
was also shot at in
Israel years ago and I am horrified by
Israel.
I do think ISIS
is the result of something else but it
is the
logic of the war
machine, the Israeli war machine ours,
the
streets of Ferguson -
which could be anywhere in the U.S. What
I'm
arguing is that
this something else cannot be explained,
that
poetics are
necessary - and why are artists so
silent on
this?
This is NOT US against THEM - this is US
against ourselves.
I also feel, having been a somewhat
minor
member of the left all
thru the 60s in the US etc. etc. that we
too
easily blame
ourselves for EVERYTHING - we are part
of the
problem, but so is
ISIS. The "also" is important below -
they are
more than these
children. I've known a lot of children
of
concentration camp
parents and their reactions are wildly
varied
(including in
several cases moving to Germany); none
of this
is simple cause
and affect.
I was also btw in Israel when Nassir was
calling for the Jews to
be drowned in the sea, when my friends
were
being shot at, when
I had a knife pulled on me in my own
dorm
room, when an Arab who
was my friend was beaten to an inch of
his
life and dropped in a
gully (beaten by other Arabs). Violence
breeds
violence. I'm not
trying to analyze the politics of ISIS -
I
read about them but
I'm not capable of political science -
but I
am trying to deal
with the poetics/poesis of what's inside
each
of us.
Alan
On Wed, 27 Aug 2014, Ana Vald?s wrote:
Alan, read it, please, ISIS is also the
children of the
terrible war againt Irak, a war based on
false
information
and cheap oil. ISIS is the children of
the
drones hitting
villagers weddings in Pakistan. No, we
don't
see the
drones but the victims see us, all,
Westerner,
as the ones
sending the drones.
www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/25/how-brutalized-become-brutal
I was in Gaza some years ago, the same
week
Rachel Corrie
was killed,
crushed by a bulldozzer send to crush
the
houses at the
border.
Many small kids ran to the morgue to see
her
dead body, I
wonder how many of
them are in the ranks of Hamas today.
I was myselt tortured for many years
ago, I
was tortured
by fellow landsmen
who believed they needed punish me for
not
sharing their
ideas about many
things
http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/03/28/torture-works/
I marched with the women survivors of
Srebrenica in the
ex-Yugoslavia some
years ago as well, they want still
justice for
their dead
relatives
We live in a time where Ferguson, Gaza,
Montevideo,
Srebrenica, carry
painful memories to share.
Ana
On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 2:35 PM, Alan
Sondheim
<[email protected]> wrote:
ISIS NEWFLAG
http://www.alansondheim.org/isisflag.png
http://www.alansondheim.org/isisflag.mp4
A new flag for ISIS. A cross
turned,
kindly bent to
let
the bodies down, perhaps an arm
remains,
propping
the
rest of the weight. the wounded.
Perhaps
an X, sign
of
belonging, gratitude to the
beautiful
clean world.
There
are no animals here. Perhaps an X
which
itself moves
in
violence, the focus of someone
else's
dream: it was
the
land and its god which did the
dreaming.
Perhaps an
occlusion of solar light, a
moment's
cooling. But a
new
flag, new allure, new days and new
bodies.
The allure of the X as well, a new
flat
for the
taking,
copyright patent NEWFLAG, new
bodies,
worlds to
conquer.
New: forms of torture, ransom,
violence,
pillage.
New: nations, cleansings, war
machines,
prisons.
New: religions new-day dawning,
new
controls.
New: cleansed women, children.
New:
thanks be to
God.
Thanks be to God. HE almighty.
Thanks be
to God.
Perhaps an X, carved, above or
through
the eyes.
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