Riwaq's - Interruption encounter

Hello morning crowd and distant ones,

Thanks Mais for logging down some of the ideas we shared today down. Your contributions was very valuable, for indeed Interruptions strength stems from the multidisciplinary outlook of its consortium of creative minds, no particular discipline holds a monopoly of intellect over others. So here is to tearing down the boundaries!

I re-framed the ideas we touched on today in a slightly different way. We could expound on them more during our meeting tomorrow evening. I don't think we need to include this part in the invitation though.

-Narrating places - cities and memory (Bilad al Sham).
-Reflection on themes of : Homeland, Belonging and Exile.
-Living and re-inacting states of siege: Artist under occupation/ Artist is diaspora.
-The question of Identity & Citizenship in "Liquid Times".*
-Language and community as space of recovering and maintaining a denied homeland.
-The question of artistic freedom and responsibility when a is nation is under siege.
-Free minds under occupation, censored minds in diaspora; Learning from Riwaq's expererience.

* Zigmunt Bauman

Possible projects:

Web based initiatives; (Art/ Architecture/ Text) to explore and utilize virtual space as the a means of countering occupation. We could even propose a project under the title of "Un-Occupied Territories". A space where hypothetically unbound freedom exits and the citizen artist (in the larger sense of the word) have an opportunity to re- create a new reality.

Exploring cross-border collaboration, points of intersection or simultaneous installations in multiple and distant locations stretching the concept of a nationhood across the boundaries.


Proposed modification to invitation text:
You are invited to join a candid encounter between Riwaq (Ramallah based organization representing the first Palestinian participation ever at the Venice Biennale) & Interruptions ( Amman based architecture- art- culture) Initiative. The informal "Hiwar" will be an evening of unedited exchanges, reflections and interruptions within the framework of art & architecture on the themes of Homeland, Exile, Belonging, Citizenship, Identity and Collective memory among other topics.

Do we need to have more text for the invitation than what is in the paragraph in the italic?

Eman, 30.05.09