Art Metropole

21 Jan. 2012

Mostly What Is Unsaid discussion series: Fluiten in het Donker

Participants

FUSE magazine and Scapegoat: Architecture | Landscape | Political

Time

2 pm

In this Series

04 Dec. 2011
Mostly What Is Unsaid discussion series: publication launch for No Order

Art Metropole is excited to announce the second installment of our Mostly What Is Unsaid discussion series focused on Fluiten in het Donker.

Fluiten in het Donker is an exhibition and publication project by Marie Frampier, Natasha Ginwala, Jacob Korczynski, Javier Villa, Rieke Vos and Vivian Ziherl as the de Appel Curatorial Programme 2010/2011.

The publication is the trouble mirror of a curatorial research—a collection of texts and images related to the exhibition that was on view at de Appel arts centre, Amsterdam from May 21 to June 26, 2011.

It is guided by the evolving internal dialogue of a fictive curatorial narrator which here in Toronto will be embodied , multiplied, and spatialized by six readers standing in for the absent voices of the artists and curators. A polyphonic reading with the present and absent voices of Absalon, Samuel Beckett, Pierre Bismuth, Maze de Boer, Tania Bruguera, Jasper Coppes, Leon Ferrari, Sara van der Heide, Jenny Holzer, Geert Jan Jansen, Luciana Lamothe, and Monika Sosnowska.

­_I am here because of what I have said. I am here for having spoken. I have spoken, I speak, and I shall continue to speak.

Many have kept silent, but not Pim Fortuyn, not Theo van Gogh, and not I. I am obliged to speak. There is a threat which is a danger to all of us. Indeed, I am here with an unpleasant message, with a warning. Wake up Canada.

Freedom must prevail, and freedom will prevail. Ladies and gentlemen, we will never apologise for being free. We will and should never give in.

Silence is treason. That is why I have spoken, why I speak and why I shall continue to speak. Freedom and truth. I pay the price every day.

This is not the first time our civilization is under threat. We have seen dangers before. We have been betrayed by our elites before. They have sided with our enemies before. And yet, then, freedom prevailed.

Truth and freedom are inextricably connected. We must speak the truth because otherwise we shall lose our freedom. That is why I have spoken, why I speak and why I shall continue to speak.

Franz Kafka said: “one sees the sun slowly set, yet one is surprised when it suddenly becomes dark.” We must tell people, without fear, what is at stake. The lights are going out all over Europe.

I have spoken, I speak, and it is my duty – I cannot do otherwise – to continue to speak.

Thank you.*­_

- The Curator, Fluiten in het Donker

[*This text is composed of a series of quotes gleaned from the speeches of Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch PVV from his address to the British House of Lords in London (March 5, 2010), his speech at the Canadian Christian College in Toronto (May 9, 2011) and his final remarks at his trial in Amsterdam (June 1, 2011) where he was acquitted of charges of criminally insulting religious and ethnic groups and inciting hatred and discrimination.]

Fluiten in het Donker by de Appel Curatorial Programme 2010/2011 is supported by SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain in the framework of the institutional alliance between SKOR and de Appel.

Made possible with the generous support of Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK).

Mostly What Is Unsaid is an open structure of public conversations initiated by Art Metropole, FUSE and Scapegoat, motivated by our shared conception of publishing as a political praxis, rather than a form of publicity or mere representation. Engaging in conversation amidst the monologue of the neoliberal status quo demands that we attend to gestures, hesitations and omissions as much as words. Through this programming series, we will pursue the critical role of the unspoken and the unspeakable across a spectrum running from the macro- to the micro-political.

FUSE is a venue for timely and politically engaged publishing and programming reflecting the diversity of the contemporary art world. Our work fosters the exchange between social movements and the arts, featuring critical treatment of the most pressing and contentious issues in art, culture and politics from a Canadian perspective.

SCAPEGOAT: Architecture | Landscape | Political Economy is an independent, not-for-profit, bi-annual journal designed to create a context for research and development regarding design practice, historical investigation, and theoretical inquiry.

As a mytheme, the figure of the scapegoat carries the burden of the city and its sins. Walking in exile, the scapegoat was once freed from the constraints of civilization. Today, with no land left unmapped, and with processes of urbanization central to political economic struggles, SCAPEGOAT is exiled within the reality of global capital. The journal examines the relationship between capitalism and the built environment, confronting the coercive and violent organization of space, the exploitation of labour and resources, and the unequal distribution of environmental risks and benefits. Throughout our investigation of design and its promises, we return to the politics of making as a politics to be constructed.

Images

1: Cover.
2: inside page spread.
3: inside page spread.

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