BE.BOP 2012- BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS at National Arts Gallery of Namibia on April 24, 2012, 7 pm, entrance free

On Tuesday, 24 April 2012, 7 pm AfricAvenir & National Arts Gallery of Namibia present BE.BOP 2012- BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS, an international screening program and transdisciplinary roundtable centered on Black European citizenship in connection to recent moving image and performative practices.

In collaboration with AfricAvenir and the National Arts Gallery of Namibia, Alanna Lockward, the curator of this project, will present a selection of some of the participating artists at the National Arts Gallery of Namibia on April 24, 2012, 7 pm, entrance free.

This event is dedicated to the Black European Diaspora in relation to performance art and moving image and it is entitled BE.BOP 2012. BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS.

It is motivated by and theoretically embedded in the Decolonial Aesthetics approach and more specifically in the Decolonial Diasporic Aesthetics, a term coined by Mrs. Lockward.

A selection of some of the participating artists will be screened at the NAGN: Teresa María Díaz Nerio, Jeannette Ehlers, William Kentridge, Tracey Moffatt, IngridMwangiRobertHutter and Emeka Udemba. nWith similar formats, the content of this groundbreaking project has been presented at Duke University, Universidad de Cádiz, Matadero Madrid and the Dutch Art Institute and has enabled lively discussions from multiple perspectives and contexts. nFuture presentations this year include The Bioscope, Johannesburg, Goldsmiths University of London as well as the 11 Havana Biennial. 

Prior to the presentation in Windhoek, Mrs. Lockward will present BE.BOP at the Conference of the International Association of African Philosophy and Studies taking place in Durban from April 16-18.nThe main event will take place in Berlin, at the Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, a translocal theatre space which serves as point of arrival for artists from (post) migrant communities and beyond, founded in 2008 by Shermin Langhoff with the support of Fatih Akın.

The framework of this presentation and the projection of the installations is circumscribed within decolonial theories which expose how the idea of citizenship is linked to current racializing configurations and hence with the limits of humanity. In that sense, the racial hierarchy of human existence, originating in the Renaissance and prescribed legally during the Enlightenment, established current (white-male-heteronormative-Christian-Western) European notions of who is Human and who is lower in that hierarchy, thereby designating citizenship, one of the most important legacies of modernity. The time-based positions discussed at this meeting have been selected because they contest (racializing) fantasies on European citizenship. nBy means of analyzing these narratives of re-existence, BE.BOP 2012 aims at facilitating a long-term exchange between specialists in disciplines unrelated to visual arts and time-based art practitioners of different contexts of the BlackEuropean Diaspora.

The screening of the work of William Kentridge on von Trotha’s extermination order and the German colonial war against the ovaHereros and Namas, Black-Box/Chambre Noir (2005), is part of one of the sessions dedicated to colonial amnesia. nAnother of the participating artists, Teresa María Díaz Nerio, has created a performance in homage of Saartje Baartman http://blackeuropebodypolitics.wordpress.com/news/. nIn this particular piece created by a Caribbean artist, member of the Black Diaspora in Europe, the legacies of racialization are symbolically challenged across geographical and temporal narratives, enabling a dialogue between artists, thinkers and feminists from different Diaspora and African contexts like participants, Rozena Maart and Simmi Dullay, who are both based in Durban.nBE.BOP 2012. BLACK EUROPE BODY POLITICS IS a project of Art Labour Archies in collaboration with Allianz Kulturstifung and Ballhaus Naunynstrasse.

About Alanna Lockward:
Alanna Lockward is an author, critic and independent curator specialized in time-based undertakings. In 1988, she was appointed Director of International Affairs at Museo de Arte Moderno in Santo Domingo. She is the founding director of Art Labour Archives, a cultural platform and agency responsible for producing situation-specific art events and exhibitions since 1997 in the US, the Caribbean, Europe and the African continent. She is chief editor of VideoArtWorld online magazine and general manager of the Transnational Decolonial Institute. She obtained her Licentiate at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco on communications science, and her MA at the Institute for Art in Context of the Univesity of the Arts Berlin. Her unique approach to transdisciplinary knowledge-production engaging visual arts, decolonial theory and Black feminism has been part of her lectures and presentations at  different institutions such as the Humboldt University and Transart Institute (Berlin); the Roosevelt Academy-Utrecht University, Ninsee (National Institute for the Study of Dutch Slavery and its Legacies) and the Dutch  Art Institute (The Nethelands); Goldsmisths University of London and the University of Warwick (England);  the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (South Africa) and the 11 Havana Biennial, among others. nShe has been awarded by the Danish Arts Council, the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Allianz Kulturstiftung.Alanna Lockward is an author, critic and independent curator specialized in time-based undertakings. In 1988, she was appointed Director of International Affairs at Museo de Arte Moderno in Santo Domingo. She is the founding director of ArtLabour Archives, a cultural platform and agency responsible for producing situation-specific art events and exhibitions since 1997 in the US, the Caribbean, Europe and the African continent. She is chief editor of VideoArtWorld online magazine and general manager of the Transnational Decolonial Institute. 

Lockward is the author of Apremio: Apuntes sobre el pensamiento y la creación contemporánea desde el Caribe, and co-author of Vídeo en Latinoamérica: Una visión crítica and Arte Contemporáneo Dominicano. Her essays and articles have been published by Arte Contexto, Art Nexus, Cariforum, Archipiélago, ARCONOTICIAS and Atlántica. Her short novel on Haitian-Dominican relations, Marassá y la Nada,  is being published online on the Dominican newspaper Acento from October 2011 to February 2012.nhttp://alannalockward.wordpress.com/artlabour/ 

Some representative curatorial projects are:

Filipa César. The Embassy. Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2011.http://www.hkw.de/en/programm/2011/labor_berlin_2011/veranstaltungen_53773/Veranstaltungsdetail_55284.php 

Truestories.Truesuccess. Freies Museum Berlin, 2009.http://truestoriestruesuccess.wordpress.com/ 

Pares & Nones. Contemporary Photography from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo; Instituto Iberoamericano, Berlin; Art Basel Miami Beach; Goethe Institut, Lomé, 2002-2008. http://www.creativeafricanetwork.com/page/7179/en 

Días Hábiles. Noches Hábiles. Museo de Arte Moderno, Museo del Hombre Dominicano, Santo Domingo, 2001.http://alannalockward.wordpress.com/dias-habiles-noches-habiles/ 

Tres Idos. 3 y 2. Museo X-Teresa Arte Actual. México, D.F., 2000.http://alannalockward.wordpress.com/tres-idos-3-y-2/ 

Insight into Otherness. Art Center South-Florida, 1997.http://alannalockward.wordpress.com/insight-into-otherness/ 

For further information call 0855630949
or email to moc.liamelgoog@khw.rinevacirfa