[csaa-forum] Creativity/Participation/Action: New paths to cultural citizenship - Free public events, all welcome

[Tanja Dreher]

CREATIVITY/PARTICIPATION/ACTION: New paths to cultural citizenship
Thursday 24 – Friday 25 November 2011

Hosted by: UTS/ICE Linkage Project, Ripple Effects: community building, participation and cultural citizenship through creativepractices in Western Sydney

The UTS/ICE Linkage Project – ‘Ripple Effects’ is hosting the Creativity/Participation/Action symposium over two days on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 November.  Three exciting public events are included within the symposium program (please see below).

All are welcome.  Please pass on to any relevant networks.  If possible please rsvp to Jemima Mowbray (jemima.mowbray at uts.edu.au) for purposes of catering.  Light refreshments will be served before most events.

PUBLIC EVENTS

Thursday 24 November 2011, 10am       
Public lecture with Madhusree Dutta, Individual in the Community: Cultural Practices, Art Making and Displacement / Departure

Thursday 24 November 2011, 4pm
Public lecture with Professor Rina Benmayor, "Voice Acts": Claiming Cultural Citizenship through Testimonio

Friday 25 November 2011, 11.30am
Facilitated conversation with filmmakers Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar 

Friday 25 November 2011, 3.30pm
Conversations with Information and Cultural Exchange, ICE Showcase

For full abstracts please see below.

The venue for all the public events (and the full symposium) is: 
Room 470, Level 2, Building 10, University of Technology Sydney, (Jones Street, Broadway)
 
We look forward to seeing you there.  Please visit our website for the full symposium program.
 

CREATIVITY/PARTICIPATION/ACTION PUBLIC EVENTS

Thursday 24 November 2011, 10am          
Public lecture with Madhusree Dutta
Individual in the Community: Cultural Practices, Art Making and Displacement / Departure
 
Culture as producer of art and art as the product are as complimentary and oppositional as community and citizens are. All communities are not valid citizens as all cultural productions are not considered art. The requisition, negotiations and evaluations related to the art and the citizenship are extraneous to the practices of culture and community. The transformation from the normative producer of culture within the community to the artist-citizen in a value-driven nation-state is a process that, more often than not, results in conflict-ridden narrative.
 
Space, material and production process play a role in cultural production to the extent that colonialization, neo-colonialization, migration and other forms of displacement as well as shift in the material base; for example, the advent of digitality or formal training in other forms; can entirely alter the meaning and the purpose of the art works. On the other hand, this hybridisation may also create specificity to the order that the normative cultural production turn into signatured art work of phenomenal value.  The paper will detail a few case studies to enquire into the pros and cons of transformation of communal and/or livelihood skill into artist’s genius through external interventions. 
 
Thursday 24 November 2011, 4pm
Public lecture with Professor Rina Benmayor
"Voice Acts": Claiming Cultural Citizenship through Testimonio
 
Oral histories and digital stories are more than simple expressions of individual life moments or experiences.  Seen through the framework of "testimonio," of bearing witness and speaking out, personal stories of marginalized communities are "voice acts," acts of speaking back and claiming cultural difference as the basis for full citizenship.  Oral histories and digital stories are also creative andartistic acts of memory.  Through oral histories with working class Puerto Rican women in New York City and digital testimonios created by Mexican/Latino students in rural California, Benmayor argues for understanding these narratives as claims for cultural citizenship.
 
Friday 25 November 2011, 11.30am
Facilitated conversation with filmmakers Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar
 
You are invited to participate in a facilitated conversation with Indian documentary filmmakers Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayasankar who will screen excerpts from their recent work and talk about the ideas behind and process of making their films.
 
Biography of film-makers:  Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar are Professors at the  Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Both of them are involved in media production, teaching and research. A presiding thematic of much of their work has been a problematising of notions of self and the other, of normality and deviance, of the local and the global, through the exploration of diverse narratives andrituals. These range from the stories and paintings of indigenous peoples to the poetry of prison inmates. Jointly they have won twenty-eight national and international awards for their films. These include the Prix Futura Berlin 1995 Asia Prize for Identity- The Construction of Selfhood,  Best Innovation, Astra Film Festival 1998, Sibiu, Romania for YCP 1997, Best documentary award at the IV Three Continents International Festival of Documentaries 2005, Venezuela, for SheWrite ,Certificate of Merit, Mumbai International Film Festival 2008, Indian Documentary Producers Associuation (IDPA) Gold for Best Sound Design, Gold for Best Script and Silver for Editing for the film Our Family. Their most recent awards include the commendation for Do Din Ka Mela (A Two Day Fair) in the Intangible Culture (Music-Dance-Performance) category at the 12th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film, 2011  and three Silvers, for script, cinematography and sound design at the IDPA Awards 2011 for So Heddan So Hoddan. Vibgyor Film Festival, Kerala and Bangalore Film Society have organised retrospectives of their work in 2006 and 2010, respectively.

Friday 25 November2011, 3.30pm
Conversations with Information and Cultural Exchange
ICE Showcase
 
Come along for an exciting afternoon session as ICE staff and Western Sydney artists share their observations and reflections on working in a variety of community arts projects in Western Sydney.  This session will include some short screenings of the inspiring work ICE is involved in.  



Dr Tanja Dreher
Lecturer, Media and Communication
Faculty of Arts
University of Wollongong, NSW 2522
Room 19.2022
Phone +61 (0)2 42981219