28 May 2012

BAT: Bridging Art + Text

TO ANYONE who has a professional interest in the Danish art and literature Scene: Naturama and the Karen Blixen Museum hereby invite you to be amused, inspired, provoked and  - above all – intellectually and academically stimulated by a highly qualified group of thinkers from Benin, Brazil, Cuba, Denmark, France, Jamaica, Mexico, Suriname, South Africa, Switzerland, Ethiopia, Trinidad and just a few other places.

These thinkers have been asked to come together during workshops and meetings to debate their cross existences and connected histories with the goal of possible new makings. They have been brought together to stimulate the writing on intercultural artists in Scandinavia, and to put context on their works based on each of their experiences and diverse backgrounds. To create debate, and intersections, BAT focuses on creating interaction between cultural Diasporas and their relevant crossings in histories, development and existences.

BAT wishes to focus on the practices of contemporary spaces for art and literature in different contexts and settings. At the BAT seminar the following will present their curatorial practices: chief curator at San Ildefonso Museum in Mexico Ery Camara, co-director of Alice Yard in Trinidad Christopher Cozier, program director of the Trinidad and Tobago's literary festival Nicholas Laughlin, co-founder and former director of Instituto Buena Bista – Curaçao Center for Contemporary Art Nancy Hoffmann, and former curator at the Rahimtulla Museum of Modern Art (RaMoMA) in Kenya and founder of the artist collective 3 Collect James Muriuki.

BAT has invited the following visual artists whose work engage with discussions on black identity and aesthetics: Ebony G. Patterson who use 'gangsta' and Jamaican dancehall culture as a platform for shifting the symbols of the feminine and masculine, Yoyo Gonthier whose ongoing work Oui mon commandant captures artifacts and monuments of colonialism still present today in public space in both France and Niger, Sasha Huber who challenges the ongoing celebration of Swiss-born naturalist and glaciologist Louis Agassiz - an influential racist and pioneering thinker of apartheid, and Gillion Grantsaan whose work reflects on a migratory cultural flexibility and tolerance that is rooted in the cultural identity of the non-Western immigrant artist.

BAT wish to ignite discussions about international politics and activism in art by bringing forth well-researched insights into Cuban-American relations by scholar and writer Carlos Moore, discussions on the creation of a contemporary image of the ANC in South Africa by Ramzie Abrahams, new perspectives on the collaborations and cultural diversity in the Pacific by professor Amareswar Galla, debates of the return of the Diaspora to post-communist Ethiopia by festival director Heruy Arefe-Aine and critical views on the Arab socialism and the state of Algeria by writer Noufel Bouzeboudja.

BAT will give visual and narrative inspiration on how religion and spirituality can bring new aesthetics and thoughts on society to contemporary art, as curator and art historian Joseph Adandé and writer Florent Coauo-Zotti introduce the contemporary culture, religion and history of Vodun in Benin, curator and professor Daniel Dawson gives a comparative sound-scape of spiritual practices in Africa and South America, visual artist Charl Landvreugd presents his work, which draws on Winti in Suriname and filmmaker and professor Britt Kramvig presents her research into Shamanism and contemporary artists from Sapmi (Lapland).

BAT wants to create debate, knowledge sharing and networks between relevant Scandinavian institutions and international spaces, groups, institutions and independent artists in Africa, the Caribbean, the U.S. and Europe.

BAT is generously supported by: Danish Agency for Culture, Danish Art Council, Toyota Fonden, Institut Français Danemark & Billedkunstnernes Forbund – Danish Visual Artists.