PRAXIS Samtale
PRAXIS Oslo presents Utopia - time - betrayal with Jassem Hindi
Date to be announced shortly
Utopia - time - betrayal
How to host what haunts us?
U/dystopia as a political desire, considered from a forensic perspective.
U/dystopia as a symptom of the intersection of time, body and the political practice of hospitality.
U/dystopia and performance as a shared history.
Utopia can be considered as a political script for the future written by philosophers and artists, and destined for kings. Or at least addressed to the boy-king inside the writer’s mind. Utopia, thus, is always delayed, it is always ''for the future'', not for ''us'', now, in the fragmented present. Utopia is a suspicious political desire, one that carries a long shadow of violence. It is an island where time is suspended, and thus transformation is excluded. How to reach utopia when there is no path leading to the golden gates? What does this political desire reveal? In a first part, I will share my forensic investigation of Utopia, starting with the concept of presence in Greek philosophy.
However, time-based art and time-bending techniques found in art, - whether dance, poetry, theater, cinema, immersive arts, or design - give us precise indications as to what happens when a non-linear relation to time is reintroduced in the creation of u/dystopia. How can a controlled, Cartesian imagination be betrayed, perverted, re-incarnated. What are the clues as to how to transform chimeras into living monsters? Etel Adnan, Ruairi Donovan, Larissa Sansour, Ralph Lemon, Edouard Glissant, Kodwo Eshun, Black Quantum futurism, Xeno-feminism, Saidiya Hartman or Reza Negarestani give us hints, through theory, performance, poetry.
In this ''betrayed'' version, Utopia is not ‘yet to come’, it is a now: a poem written in times of war is a direct access to utopia, a performance is a pharmakon in times of hardship - that is the effectiveness of utopia taken as an immanent, discreet operation.
It is this forensic of Utopia, and this practice of imagination that I would like to share with you, one that is placed under the double-binding sign of haunting and hospitality.
Jassem Hindi, artist based in Norway. Hindi's work looks at the double bind of haunting and hospitality, in an effort to reveal slow (unseen and quiet) violence and slow revolutions. His last recent performances make use of poems as immediate political spaces.
This year, among others, he is in collaboration with Ligia Lewis, Barbara Raes, Keith Hennessy, Sina Seifee, Lara Kramer, Ofelia Ortega and Mia Habib. He is the artist in residence for 2020 - 2022 at the MAI, Montreal, Canada. https://www.m-a-i.qc.ca/
To attend please register a spot by emailing praxisoslo@gmail.com
Space is limited.
Image credit: Jassem Hindi
Samtaler History
In the fall of 2020 into the winter of 2021 PRAXIS Oslo initiated a series of conversations addressing the lack of space and production platforms in Oslo.
Internationally, there are successful examples of organisations that meet these needs by offering artists flexible work space opportunities, production and administrative support. Together with people from established institutions, we as freelance artists want to think about new formats and solutions for these urgent issues. We want to map a network of affordable rehearsal spaces available for the freelance dance community. Through partnerships with already subsidized organisations and institutions, we hope to create not only better accessibility to space, but more overlap between the freelance and established field. Our aim is that in the future no rehearsal space is left unused. For the conversation around production, we want to think about the possibility of creating production platforms that correspond to the current needs of a diverse freelance performing arts field in Oslo.
Talking Space in Dance with Mina Weider at Montebello Kulturhus
Friday November 6, 2020, 11.30-14.00
For our second talk we invited Mina Weider (NO / CA), an Oslo based performer and choreographer and one of the creators of “Montebello kulturhus”. Montebello kulturhus is an artist run initiative, housing over 50 artist and several galleries and dance studios for daily artistic work. Let's get inspired by this great initiative!
Montebello Kulturhus is an artist-run culture house established in the spring of 2020 in the old Smestad Transformer Station next to Montebello T-bane.
Mondays Sep 21 14:00-16:00
Handwerk Botaniske
For our first meeting PRAXIS Oslo has invited Ingeleiv Berstad (Bananaz) and Ann-Christin Kongsness to talk about ongoing conversations and past attempts to find solutions for the lack of space and production platforms in Olso's independent dance field.
Date to be announced shortly
Utopia - time - betrayal
How to host what haunts us?
U/dystopia as a political desire, considered from a forensic perspective.
U/dystopia as a symptom of the intersection of time, body and the political practice of hospitality.
U/dystopia and performance as a shared history.
Utopia can be considered as a political script for the future written by philosophers and artists, and destined for kings. Or at least addressed to the boy-king inside the writer’s mind. Utopia, thus, is always delayed, it is always ''for the future'', not for ''us'', now, in the fragmented present. Utopia is a suspicious political desire, one that carries a long shadow of violence. It is an island where time is suspended, and thus transformation is excluded. How to reach utopia when there is no path leading to the golden gates? What does this political desire reveal? In a first part, I will share my forensic investigation of Utopia, starting with the concept of presence in Greek philosophy.
However, time-based art and time-bending techniques found in art, - whether dance, poetry, theater, cinema, immersive arts, or design - give us precise indications as to what happens when a non-linear relation to time is reintroduced in the creation of u/dystopia. How can a controlled, Cartesian imagination be betrayed, perverted, re-incarnated. What are the clues as to how to transform chimeras into living monsters? Etel Adnan, Ruairi Donovan, Larissa Sansour, Ralph Lemon, Edouard Glissant, Kodwo Eshun, Black Quantum futurism, Xeno-feminism, Saidiya Hartman or Reza Negarestani give us hints, through theory, performance, poetry.
In this ''betrayed'' version, Utopia is not ‘yet to come’, it is a now: a poem written in times of war is a direct access to utopia, a performance is a pharmakon in times of hardship - that is the effectiveness of utopia taken as an immanent, discreet operation.
It is this forensic of Utopia, and this practice of imagination that I would like to share with you, one that is placed under the double-binding sign of haunting and hospitality.
Jassem Hindi, artist based in Norway. Hindi's work looks at the double bind of haunting and hospitality, in an effort to reveal slow (unseen and quiet) violence and slow revolutions. His last recent performances make use of poems as immediate political spaces.
This year, among others, he is in collaboration with Ligia Lewis, Barbara Raes, Keith Hennessy, Sina Seifee, Lara Kramer, Ofelia Ortega and Mia Habib. He is the artist in residence for 2020 - 2022 at the MAI, Montreal, Canada. https://www.m-a-i.qc.ca/
To attend please register a spot by emailing praxisoslo@gmail.com
Space is limited.
Image credit: Jassem Hindi
Samtaler History
In the fall of 2020 into the winter of 2021 PRAXIS Oslo initiated a series of conversations addressing the lack of space and production platforms in Oslo.
Internationally, there are successful examples of organisations that meet these needs by offering artists flexible work space opportunities, production and administrative support. Together with people from established institutions, we as freelance artists want to think about new formats and solutions for these urgent issues. We want to map a network of affordable rehearsal spaces available for the freelance dance community. Through partnerships with already subsidized organisations and institutions, we hope to create not only better accessibility to space, but more overlap between the freelance and established field. Our aim is that in the future no rehearsal space is left unused. For the conversation around production, we want to think about the possibility of creating production platforms that correspond to the current needs of a diverse freelance performing arts field in Oslo.
Talking Space in Dance with Mina Weider at Montebello Kulturhus
Friday November 6, 2020, 11.30-14.00
For our second talk we invited Mina Weider (NO / CA), an Oslo based performer and choreographer and one of the creators of “Montebello kulturhus”. Montebello kulturhus is an artist run initiative, housing over 50 artist and several galleries and dance studios for daily artistic work. Let's get inspired by this great initiative!
Montebello Kulturhus is an artist-run culture house established in the spring of 2020 in the old Smestad Transformer Station next to Montebello T-bane.
Mondays Sep 21 14:00-16:00
Handwerk Botaniske
For our first meeting PRAXIS Oslo has invited Ingeleiv Berstad (Bananaz) and Ann-Christin Kongsness to talk about ongoing conversations and past attempts to find solutions for the lack of space and production platforms in Olso's independent dance field.
