The Central America Regional Forum on Arts, Culture and Human Rights takes place June 18-20 – Tegucigalpa, Honduras

freeDimensional (www.freedimensional.org), Colectivo Hormiga (http://colectivohormiga.com) HIVOS (www.hivos.nl) are pleased to announce the launch of the Central American Regional Forum on Arts, Culture and Human Rights, June 18-20 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

The Forum is the first-ever three-day participatory forum aiming to support, unite and inspire the arts & culture and human rights sectors in Central America to collaborate, uphold freedom of expression as a basic human right and acknowledge artists and culture workers as primary defenders of it. Approximately 50 Central American cultural and human rights organizations will participate.

Increasing numbers of artists and culture workers are using their artistic expression to support human rights and social justice objectives for their communities. In return they can face physical violence, imprisonment or even death. It is crucial that human rights, free speech and culture organizations work together to ensure their safety and the continuation of the important work they do for society.

The Regional Forum will trace the history of socially and politically engaged artistic practice in Central America, identify common issues and experiences, develop a collective vision of the future and lead to the establishment of a regional platform for exchange and collaboration between artists and culture workers working towards transformative societal change.

The Regional Forum is guided by freeDimensional, an internationally networked organization, that assists artists, culture workers and communicators at risk by brokering resources and services, linking them to art spaces that can provide temporary safe haven and by facilitating the development of safety and support networks in regions around the world.

Based in Tegucigalpa, Colectivo Hormiga is a group of five organizations committed to art, linked to the community and dedicated to the enhancement of the old Casa Central Penitentiary of Honduras as an open and culturally diverse space.

HIVOS is an international development organization based in the Netherlands guided by humanist values. Working in collaboration with local civil society organizations in developing countries, Hivos aims to contribute to a free, fair and sustainable world.

The Forum is supported by Actors for Change (http://central-america.hivos.org/actors-change), a program funded by SIDA (http://www.sida.se) and implemented by Hivos throughout Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Actors for Change include independent media, journalists, artists, cultural activists, and human rights defenders and aims to build a collective strategy that includes enhancing free expression, capacity building, and safety and protection.

Queens Museum – Open A.I.R. & fD present Kumbia Queers with Que Bajo: Redefining Cumbia, Love and Latinamericanidad

Mar 6 2014, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

An open conversation with the members of Kumbia Queers and Que Bajo regarding cumbia, gender and love in Latin America. Followed by an acoustic set by the Kumbia Queers.

Guests: Kumbia Queers (Argentina-Mexico), Gecko Jones (NYC-Colombia-Puerto Rico), and Uproot Andy (NYC-Canada)

Moderated by: Santo Padre (Mexico-NYC)

Free & Open to the Public

America is a continent marked by migration of bodies, ideas and ideals. It is a region politically divided into countries named and formed by Europeans, mostly man, mostly white or after gold. The vast richness of the continent has attracted people from all over the world for centuries, making it difficult to establish an identity that we can call our own. How does culture shape what we believe, see and hear?

Cumbia began as a slave movement in the Caribbean, and has recently been redefined and reseen by independent musicians across the world. The Kumbia Queers, Gecko Jones and Uprooot Andy are part of this redefinition.

But music is not only music, it implies politics, divisions, and struggles. The Kumbia Queers are the first band in Latin America to produce love songs from girls to girls, and the first openly queer band in the masculine domintated punk-rock scene. This has allowed a redefinition of gender, sexuality, and love as political action.

Through this off track academic presentation, we intend to discuss contemporary Latin American and American issues like womanhood, gender, and slavery.

About the Panelists:

Kumbia Queers are a group of cumbia-punk-rockers that started eight years ago in Argentina. It formed in the underground circles of Argentina, and is formed by independent punk-inspired artists. The group has become an international phenommenon that has led them to growing tours in Europe and the Americas; an edition of their first album in Japan; a documentary film to be released in Chile, and other international presentations in major festivals like Fusion (Germany) and Vive Latino (México). The seven girls that make up Kumbia Queers are also involved in other bands, and independent art movements across the world.

Gecko Jones and Uproot Andy are celebrated internationally for their cumbia production in New York. They are all part of the cultural shift provoked by the redefinition of cumbia. They have hosted Que Bajo for 5 years, a series of parties in New York hosting diverse musicians from Latin America, Africa and other regions of the world.

Santo Padre is a Mexican queerist who develops inter-American projects that allow dialogue, in hopes of democracy and freedom. She is the co-founder of agite y sirva, the traveling videodance film festival in Mexico, and is currently an honorary member of La Pocha Nostra, the performance group founded and directed by Guillermo Gomez Peña.

Co-Presenters:

This program is part of  Queens Museum’s Artists Services program, Open A.I.R. It is made possible by a generous grant from The Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund. Public Events at the Queens Museum are supported in part by The Kresge Foundation, Surdna Foundation, and The David Rockefeller Fund. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Founded in 2008 by Uproot Andy and Geko Jones, the NYC tropical dance party Que Bajo has been influential in changing the sound NYC nightlife. The residents’ now widely known remixes and productions mix the folkloric music of Latin America with modern electronica. Initially intended as an outlet for this new sound (often known as Tropical Bass), Que Bajo has increasingly become a showcase for an ever evolving array of new musical trends emanating from around the globe. Nominated for ‘Best Party’ in the 2010 Paper Magazine Nightlife Awards and named by Timeout NY as NYC’s Top Latin Underground Party, Que Bajo continues to host many of the young artists and DJs on the cutting edge of these new sounds. 2013 saw the launch of Que Bajo Records releasing a steady stream of remixes and club edits that give the now famous party its signature sound.

The Levermore Global Scholars Program is partnering with freeDimensional to bring guest speaker Ademola Bello, an international artist, to campus.

Thursday, December 5, 2:00–3:00 p.m

Location: Campbell Lounge, Room 1

About the Artist:

Ademola Bello is a Nigerian playwright, journalist, and novelist who has used his plays and dramatic writing to give a voice to oppressed communities and speak truth to power around the world. He will share his international journey, experiences, and struggles to use the arts as a tool for social change.

His play The Black Cockerel was produced in June 2009 at Out North Theatre in Anchorage, Alaska. He received a Residency to Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Connecticut, and also won both the Audience and Panelist Choice Awards at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska for his play The Blackguard Prince. His plays have enjoyed staged readings at New York Actors Studio, Lark Play Development Center, and Frederick Loewe’s Room. He has been profiled in American Theater Journal and has appeared as a guest on ESPN Outside the Lines. Mr. Bello recently finished a thriller novel titled A Prisoner from Cell 7 and is currently working on a new play entitled Change: A Comedy in Two Acts. His work has been featured in New York Amsterdam Newspaper, Anchorage Press Newspaper, Real Clear World, Encyclopedia Britannica, and The Huffington Post. He holds an M.F.A. from New York University and is completing a second master’s degree at Columbia University’s School of Journalism. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact:

Peter DeBartolo
Administrative Director
Levermore Global Scholars
p – 516.237.8627
e – pdebartolo@adelphi.edu

On November 13 & 14, fD in partnership with El Centro Cultural de Espana in Mexico is hosting a two day consultation meeting on free expression and cultural rights in Mexico and Central America. 45 representatives from the arts, culture and human rights sectors will attend the consultation to exchange experiences, issues and problems, and mechanisms of support as they relate to different forms of creative activism.

What: 2-day consultation / workshop with artists, culture workers and activists from Mexico and Central America

Why: Objectives:

• to collectively explore local/regional issues and situations of danger to artists and culture workers whose work is linked to social justice and free expression
• to collectively identify strategies for a) protection from threats in advance of a controversial cultural manifestation; b) strategies to protect the artists or culture worker from danger following actual threat or harm; c)  strategies for identifying safe havens to remove the artist or cultural worker from danger; d) creating networked support to offer legal, financial, psycho-social and other assistance; e)  creating networked support for supporting the artist or cultural workers’ continued work in the community
• to collectively adapt, re-write and own a version of freeDimensional’s ‘Advo-kit’ (a DIY manual for protecting artists and culture workers in distress) tailored to the local and regional contexts in Mexico and Central America
• to seed the development of local and regional artists safety support networks that can be activated to serving the needs of individuals and communities under threat

How:  freeDimensional uses grassroots methods to bring local partners together who have a natural complementarity yet may not normally work together to form a cross-sector support network for endangered artists and cultural workers.  Starting with a series of in-depth local visits and meetings, key actors are identified including: arts collectives, individual artists, activist groups, human rights defenders, free speech NGOs or social movements. Taking into consideration the compounded effects of varying forms of repression on identity groups such as LGBT, women, indigenous peoples, youth or others, follow up consultation meetings highlight the issues, topics and themes relevant to the local situation and create a space for participants to brainstorm local/regional options, possibilities and safety mechanisms.  This inclusive process aims to connect and catalyze a regional network inclusive of artists, culture workers, journalists, human rights defenders, social justice movements, indigenous communicators, arts educators, etc. that can be mobilized to deliver holistic support to those who need it.  At the end of the process, a tangible deliverable will be a version of fD’s Creative Safe Haven Advo-kit adapted and re-worked to directly address culture worker safety and readiness in relation to local and regional contexts.

Check in for updates to follow.

Arts/Rights/Justice Working Group presents UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights Report on The Right to Freedom of Artistic Expression & Creation – October 2 – Brussels

The presentation of the UN Report, “The Right to Freedom of Artistic Expression and Creation” at the European Parliament in Brussels on 2^nd October 2013, from 11:30-14:30 in the Paul Henri Spaak Building, Room P5B001.  Presenting the report will be its author, Mme Farida Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur in the field of Cultural Rights.

The United Nations established the UN Special Rapporteur in 2009. Ms. Farida Shaheed’s UN Special Report was formally presented to the UN on 31st May 2013. The EU Working Group on Arts and Human Rights (ARJ)* invites members of the European Parliament and the European Commission, selected foundations, NGOs, artists and experts to join in the discussion.  A copy of the Report can be found here.

 
The European Parliament already recognises artists as a category of human rights defenders. Recent highly visible events such as the incarceration of the Chinese visual artist Ai Wewei or of the Russian music group Pussy Riot have brought the vulnerability of artists to the public eye. Indeed, discussions about artists as human rights defenders have taken place relatively recently in the European Parliament and the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights. Artists are an ‘early and easy target’ for governments seeking to increase repression. Closer to home, we see increasing numbers of cases in Members and candidates of the EU. From censorship to beatings, imprisonment and death we have documented stories of the silencing of artists who wish to highlight injustice through song, writing or image.

Freedom of expression is the cornerstone for protecting artists. States that inhibit freedom of expression often curtail other related human rights: freedom of association, freedom of assembly or the right to gather with others, freedom of association or the right to join unions or professional associations, freedom of movement or the right to travel in and outside the country, the right to access information, the right to defend a cultural identity.

“The story that is behind a censored film can help us to understand better our society”

CENSURADOS Film Festival will take place in Lima (Peru) on December 2013 with the aim to give voice to those fiction, documentary and animation films that have been censored in different countries for political, religious, sexual or environmental reasons, among others. The Festival wants to open a new space for directors and producers that their films have been prohibited and wants to know and talk about the story that is behind each censure. Since the beginning of cinema many films and scenes have been prohibited by different social, religious and political groups. Yet in 1894 we can find the first images censored in United States (“Carmencita”) that were prohibited by two local politicians because the scene shown the underskirt of the dancer. Others films such Clockwork Orange and The Great Dictator were also censored in the past and nowadays are some of the greatest films of cinema’s history. These are only some examples of how the censure has been very close to the history of the cinema and the documentary films.

THE FESTIVAL

The first edition of CENSURADOS Film Festival will take place on December 3-8th in a main location (Tupac Centro de Creación Contemporánea – Barranco – Lima) where open air screenings and activities will be held as well as in some other outreach locations. Different activities will be organized during the SIX days of the Festival: open air screenings, exhibitions, conferences, seminars, workshops, performances and concerts. All of them will be free entry.

The Festival will have an official selection (call for entries that is now going on) and also other documentary and fiction sections and retrospectives about the censorship from different points of view: Women, the Peruvian Censure, the Catholic Censure, the conflict between enterprises and indigenous villages, the history of the censored films, among others.

OFFICIAL SELECTION

This section is non-competitive and will program documentary, fiction and animation films that have been censored in the last years. A call for entries until September 1st is going on in order to invite worldwide filmmakers to participate with their long and short films and the story that is behind the censure they have suffered. The jury not only will consider the quality of the films but also the reasons because it was banished.

For more information visit: www.censuradosfilmfestival.wordpress.com

Forced to Flee: Exiled Voices and Visions of Justice

Tuesday, June 11 @ 12PM PST / 3PM EST

Greetings!

We are pleased to announce our upcoming conference call Forced to Flee: Exiled Voices and Visions for Justice, which we are presenting in collaboration with Arts & Democracy Project.

Emotions conveyed and evoked by art and culture can open hearts and minds, heal and transform, build community across difference, and promote peace, equality and justice, advancing positive social change. In Forced to Flee, we will hear refugee artists, artists forced into exile, cultural organizers and their allies talk about how they are using the power of art and culture to amplify the voices and visions of those forced to flee their countries of origin.

Presenters include:
• Sidd Joag, director of freeDimensional
• Chaw ei Thein, Burmese Artist and Activist
• Erika Berg, founder of Refugee Youth Empowered
and curator of Forced to Flee
• Leilani Chan, performance artists, cultural workers and co-creator of Refugee Nation

The call will be moderated by Todd Lester (Arts-Policy Nexus / Lanchonete.org / Queer Art) and Kathie deNobriga (Arts & Democracy Project). Andrea Assaf (Art 2 Action) will be a respondent.

We look forward to having you join us.

Click here to RSVP for call-in info. 

“All that is banned is desired”,

When art turns into a reflexive power, to get banned!

-1-

In the Norwegian capital sleeps on the shoulder of water Oslo opera house. It is a peaceful structure breathing below a changeable weather that displays simply the “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unrest”. The weather of Oslo resembles a state of instability. Political in the first sense and in a country somewhere, thousands of miles away from Oslo city. The “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unrest” are three vertices, each of particular dimension, that induce a temptation into the artist/writer/activist to move within and try to come up with a result. Yes, if these three vertices got joined together in a triangle, nothing can fit inside better than a chart of “politics of nowadays”. That may sort an elementary exercise in geometry. Is it easy to construct a triangle when the three points are located on the page? May be. A matter again to be thought about! Not that easy in fact. You have to cling in your neck a basket of requirements! Metaphorically speaking, to be able to connect the three vertices, you have to distinguish them first. And to be distinguished, an effort has to be done as they wouldn’t be located so clearly. And the medium that hosts them should be already existing, but either translucent, either turbid or dirty. However, you need also to track the “why” behind their location as well! Is that too complicated? The simplest way then, sounds to go backwards. If you know that the paper (the medium) we are talking about is nothing but the country, any country under political and military conflict, ethnic struggle, civil war, revolution, or any other kind of tension, then you can find your way to the “why” and you can understand how it means “translucent, turbid or dirty”. You will end up most probably pointing your finger to each of the vertices: the “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unstable”.

-2-

“All that is banned is desired” was the umbrella underneath gathered artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, poets, singers and activists coming from different sides of the planet. They all experienced the ground level of countries under conflict, and got to interact with the wretched, unfortunate and helpless people whom the stains of politics had tattooed their lives and won‘t be removed from their skins before a very long time from now. However, both “locals“ and “foreigner“ didn‘t share only the indisposition of politics, but also their voices got banned in the same way somehow politically, artistically or simply socially. In Oslo opera house, was the first conference of such in the world. Artists have never been given the platform to speak out the experiences and struggles with some powerful institutions getting benefits of a miserable situation somewhere. The image of the situation had to be reflected this time through the artwork, outside any political broad discourse.  However, the title itself (“all that is banned is desired“,  proverb from Arabic) bundles two poles and puts them in constant vibration of one against the other: the desired and the banned.

The right of humans to live, think, speak out, express, interact, protest and object cannot be framed simply as “desired“ just because they had been “banned“ before. These people are fighting for their rights. By living the everyday moment, they are resisting the huge political or economical or even media projects. What can be referred to as a “desire“ (that can sound luxurious), is just the very individual prerogative right. These people move within the banned, trying to recover their existential figure. Their lives are however controlled by the desire of the supreme political or media forces or powerful economic or information institutions. The desire of these robust quarters is to ban the rights of the weaker, the poorer, the voiceless individual. The “plan“ of the desire gets to match with the “performance“ of the ban. And the two strands of the classical Arab proverb “All that is banned is desired“ twist with each other.

-3-

“Is it only another conference about freedom of speech? “. There is no way to sneak this question out of my mind whenever the issue of freedom of speech is brought into discussion. It is like a tiny metallic bell ringing through the huge squeaks of conflicts, wars, ethnic struggles, political agendas, invasions, revolutions and propagandas leaping from one country into another. I try to put down the driving forces of such resonance so it doesn‘t turn over to announce the knock out of me! “The speakers are artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, poets, singers and activists“, I say to myself “and that‘s original. Isn‘t it?“ may be in the meantime. Artists, writers and poets have been involved in politics for hundreds of years. Through history, we read about works that were burned and banned, and thinkers, writers or artists being executed. We are then attached firmly to the past versions of human being. And we all trapped in a tissue whose stitches cross between human violence in one side, and power in the other. Any type or level of violence can serve, and any power also can do the best for only very few people on the planet.

The conference (25th-26th October 2012) was a combination of patches recalled from different parts of the world. But those patches didn‘t purpose to hide an image or sew a rot or remove a dirt, but to skulk the very far people‘s lives into a closer look. It was to make the translucent image transparent, or luminous to people who decided to shift their pupils away.

-4-

In Oslo opera house, artists recited parts of their biographies. They performed their “novellas“, but also their work stories as well. Art, as a house of metaphores, was the only tool in many different places to speak out the very reality. Through expressing the lives of the crashed, art could be a threat to the crasher. What a credit to us! And here a paradox rises up: it is art itself that can scare persons who tend to control the whole world through wars, economy, media or any sort of powerful means. But as an artwork gets banned, it is a confession by the banner that the work itself bears a reflexive power, that if it could grow up in the media or public, it can ban back the banner, from going on in their projects in the countries under conflict. Art itself still, within all the attempts to mold it or reorient it through media, or mass communication means, still able to multiply, strike, offend and bump. It holds the power of surprise out of the given very reality. Another reflexive effect of the banned artworks, films, books or songs, is that art turn into an exclusive medium sometimes to reveal the dirt and carelessness of politics. Banning one work stimulates the overture of many several banned social issues as well.

                                                                              Mazen Maarouf

Reykjavik, November 2012

Mazen Maarouf, is a Palestinian poet and journalist invited to attend ‘All That Is Banned Is Desired’ – the first international conference on artistic freedom of expression, October 25-27 – through the support of Cultures of Resistance Network, Freemuse and freeDimensional.

Text posted by permission of the author. Image reposted from http://mazenmaarouf.wordpress.com.

Shahin Najafi and Mohsen Namjoo are among the leading Iranian musical artists working today.

Najafi is visiting the U.S. for the first time since the fatwa and death threats against him in May 2012 resulting from the release of his satirical rap, “Naghi.” His speaking tour includes Berkeley, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Orlando. In 2009, Namjoo was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison for insulting religious sanctities by singing some Quranic verses to music in a private recording, which was later released without his authorization.

Najafi and Namjoo are appearing together in New York City to speak about musical protest and tolerance in the Iranian context and beyond. Additional guests to be announced.

Theaterlab
137 West 14th Street (between 6th Av. and 7th Av.)
Friday, October 19, 2012
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Free and open to the public

To attend RSVP: info@impossiblemusic.org.

Sponsored by: Impossible Music, Street Art Center, freeDimensional, and Freemuse: The World Forum on Music and Censorship and made possible with support from Mina Siegel.

In addition to the ordinary assembly procedures, the assembly participants will engage in vital issues to help determine the future of the young and growing ICORN network. Should ICORN member cities continue hosting writers only, or should our organisation consider offering shelter also to persecuted artists and human rights defenders? During a Market of Ideas fD has been invited  to discuss and share experiences around various topics including “The Art of hosting”, “Promotion”, “Working with PEN International” and “Preparing for the Afterlife”. fD will present and workshop its Creative Safe Haven and Community Resource Mapping models in dialogue with other participants.

For more information visit : http://www.icorn.org/