Presentations on freeDimensional

Press Release: Central America Forum on Art, Culture & Human Rights

Thu, 12 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The Central America Regional Forum on Arts, Culture and Human Rights takes place June 18-20 - Tegucigalpa, Honduras

freeDimensional (www.freedimensional.org), Colectivo Hormiga (http://colectivohormiga.com) HIVOS (www.hivos.nl) are pleased to announce the launch of the Central American Regional Forum on Arts, Culture and Human Rights, June 18-20 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

The Forum is the first-ever three-day participatory forum aiming to support, unite and inspire the arts & culture and human rights sectors in Central America to collaborate, uphold freedom of expression as a basic human right and acknowledge artists and culture workers as primary defenders of it. Approximately 50 Central American cultural and human rights organizations will participate.

Kumbia Queers @ Queens Museum - March 6, 6-8PM

Thu, 27 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Queens Museum - Open A.I.R. & fD present Kumbia Queers with Que Bajo: Redefining Cumbia, Love and Latinamericanidad

Mar 6 2014, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

An open conversation with the members of Kumbia Queers and Que Bajo regarding cumbia, gender and love in Latin America. Followed by an acoustic set by the Kumbia Queers.

Guests: Kumbia Queers (Argentina-Mexico), Gecko Jones (NYC-Colombia-Puerto Rico), and Uproot Andy (NYC-Canada)

Moderated by: Santo Padre (Mexico-NYC)

Art and Activism on the World Stage @ Adelphi University

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The Levermore Global Scholars Program is partnering with freeDimensional to bring guest speaker Ademola Bello, an international artist, to campus.

Thursday, December 5, 2:00–3:00 p.m

Location: Campbell Lounge, Room 1

About the Artist:

Ademola Bello is a Nigerian playwright, journalist, and novelist who has used his plays and dramatic writing to give a voice to oppressed communities and speak truth to power around the world. He will share his international journey, experiences, and struggles to use the arts as a tool for social change.

Mexico City Consultation on Free Expression and Cultural Rights - November 13 & 14

Wed, 13 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

On November 13 & 14, fD in partnership with El Centro Cultural de Espana in Mexico is hosting a two day consultation meeting on free expression and cultural rights in Mexico and Central America. 45 representatives from the arts, culture and human rights sectors will attend the consultation to exchange experiences, issues and problems, and mechanisms of support as they relate to different forms of creative activism.

What: 2-day consultation / workshop with artists, culture workers and activists from Mexico and Central America

Presentation: The Right to Freedom of Artistic Expression & Creation

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Arts/Rights/Justice Working Group presents UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights Report on The Right to Freedom of Artistic Expression & Creation - October 2 - Brussels

The presentation of the UN Report, “The Right to Freedom of Artistic Expression and Creation” at the European Parliament in Brussels on 2nd October 2013, from 11:30-14:30 in the Paul Henri Spaak Building, Room P5B001. Presenting the report will be its author, Mme Farida Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur in the field of Cultural Rights.

Call for Entries: CENSURADOS Film Festival - Lima, Peru

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

“The story that is behind a censored film can help us to understand better our society”

CENSURADOS Film Festival will take place in Lima (Peru) on December 2013 with the aim to give voice to those fiction, documentary and animation films that have been censored in different countries for political, religious, sexual or environmental reasons, among others. The Festival wants to open a new space for directors and producers that their films have been prohibited and wants to know and talk about the story that is behind each censure. Since the beginning of cinema many films and scenes have been prohibited by different social, religious and political groups. Yet in 1894 we can find the first images censored in United States (“Carmencita”) that were prohibited by two local politicians because the scene shown the underskirt of the dancer. Others films such Clockwork Orange and The Great Dictator were also censored in the past and nowadays are some of the greatest films of cinema’s history. These are only some examples of how the censure has been very close to the history of the cinema and the documentary films.

Forced to Flee: Exiled Voices and Visions for Justice - 11 June 2013

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Forced to Flee: Exiled Voices and Visions of Justice

Tuesday, June 11 @ 12PM PST / 3PM EST

Greetings!

We are pleased to announce our upcoming conference call Forced to Flee: Exiled Voices and Visions for Justice, which we are presenting in collaboration with Arts & Democracy Project.

Emotions conveyed and evoked by art and culture can open hearts and minds, heal and transform, build community across difference, and promote peace, equality and justice, advancing positive social change. In Forced to Flee, we will hear refugee artists, artists forced into exile, cultural organizers and their allies talk about how they are using the power of art and culture to amplify the voices and visions of those forced to flee their countries of origin.

Dispatch: Mazen Maarouf on 'All that is banned is desired"

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

“All that is banned is desired”,

When art turns into a reflexive power, to get banned!

-1-

In the Norwegian capital sleeps on the shoulder of water Oslo opera house. It is a peaceful structure breathing below a changeable weather that displays simply the “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unrest”. The weather of Oslo resembles a state of instability. Political in the first sense and in a country somewhere, thousands of miles away from Oslo city. The “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unrest” are three vertices, each of particular dimension, that induce a temptation into the artist/writer/activist to move within and try to come up with a result. Yes, if these three vertices got joined together in a triangle, nothing can fit inside better than a chart of “politics of nowadays”. That may sort an elementary exercise in geometry. Is it easy to construct a triangle when the three points are located on the page? May be. A matter again to be thought about! Not that easy in fact. You have to cling in your neck a basket of requirements! Metaphorically speaking, to be able to connect the three vertices, you have to distinguish them first. And to be distinguished, an effort has to be done as they wouldn’t be located so clearly. And the medium that hosts them should be already existing, but either translucent, either turbid or dirty. However, you need also to track the “why” behind their location as well! Is that too complicated? The simplest way then, sounds to go backwards. If you know that the paper (the medium) we are talking about is nothing but the country, any country under political and military conflict, ethnic struggle, civil war, revolution, or any other kind of tension, then you can find your way to the “why” and you can understand how it means “translucent, turbid or dirty”. You will end up most probably pointing your finger to each of the vertices: the “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unstable”.

MUSIC, TOLERANCE & DEFIANCE - October 19, 6:30 PM

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

MUSIC, TOLERANCE & DEFIANCE: An evening with Shahin Najafi & Mohsen Namjoo

Shahin Najafi and Mohsen Namjoo are among the leading Iranian musical artists working today.

Najafi is visiting the U.S. for the first time since the fatwa and death threats against him in May 2012 resulting from the release of his satirical rap, “Naghi.” His speaking tour includes Berkeley, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Orlando. In 2009, Namjoo was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison for insulting religious sanctities by singing some Quranic verses to music in a private recording, which was later released without his authorization.

freeDimensional @ the ICORN General Assembly - Stockholm, Sweden. 9-11 May 2012

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

fD Director, Sidd Joag joins more than 100 delegates, guest writers and observers from as many as 32 different countries heading to Stockholm Wednesday 9-Friday 11 May, to take part in the 2012 International Cities Of Refuge Network General Assembly. Established as an independent, international organisation since 2010, more than 30 ICORN member cities from all over Europe and beyond will be represented when it all breaks loose at Kulturhuset in Stockholm.

CROSSFIRE - Photographs by Shahidul Alam @ QMA - Sunday, April 15

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Forum & Opening Reception for Partnership Gallery Exhibition in Collaboration with Drik Picture Library, Dhaka.

Bangladeshi photographer and human rights activist Shahidul Alam’s Crossfire exhibition will open in the Partnership Gallery at the Queens Museum of Art on 15th April, 2012 and run until May 6th, 2012. The exhibition aims to gather international support for a campaign to end extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh by state forces, usually called “crossfire.”

In 2004, responding to a perceived law and order “crisis” the Bangladesh government created a new, armed enforcement agency, called Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). The agency was formed by taking officers from the Bangladesh Police, Army, Navy and Air Force. Over time, the agency’s budget and power grew until today it is one of the largest and most feared groups inside Bangladesh. From the very early days, RAB became notorious for killing people it was trying to capture, often during gun battles, which the government always claims is due to “crossfire.”

fD @ Artsfex - Copenhagen Summit on Artistic Freedom of Expression, 9-11 December

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

fD joins the Artsfex summit in Copenhagen on 9-11 December 2011 along with several prominent national and international artists’ networks, and freedom of expression organisations. The summit is organised by Freemuse and Danish PEN, and funded by the Danish Ministry of Culture. Participants will present http://www.raybani.com/ recent examples of censorship of the arts, and discuss the effects of censorship and repression of artists. Featured presenters include founding members of the Belarus Free Theatre, currently living in exile.

fD participates in VI. Festival Against Censorship - November 7-11

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

fD program coordinator Sidd Joag joins a roundtable discussion at the VI. Festival Against Censorship in Bilbao, Spain. Now in its 6th year, the Festival is organized by the Basque production company Serrano in collaboration with FREEMUSE and in 2010 honored fD with its annual No Censorship award.

Highlights of this year’s Festival program include fD stakeholders: Malaysian cartoonist ZUNAR, and Zimbabwean artist Owen Maseko.

“Zunar has been drawing editorial cartoons for the past 20 years in malaysia. Zunar uses his drawing pen as a weapon to fight state corruption and abuse of power. seven of his books are banned by the malaysian government.”

'Cultures of Resistance' - Artists on Art and Activism

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

fD program coordinator and visual artist Sidd Joag joins a panel with poet Suheir Hammad, filmmaker Iara Lee and Paul D. Miller a.k.a D.J. Spooky, to explore the role of the artist in a global society, including that of the diasporic artist. The panel will be moderated by http://www.raybandasoleit.com/ NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Arts and Public Policy Chair Randy Martin. 7-9PM @ NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò

As part of the program, fD and Residency Unlimited will facilitate a working session on a new residency and resource mapping initiative for artists-in-exile in New York City, including invited guests and open to the public. 3-5PM. @ NYU Institute for Public Knowledge

Estonia & NYC: Sharing the Model of Critical Hosting

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

From April 14-17, freeDimensional’s program coordinator Sidd Joag was invited to present Art Spaces Hosting Activism and Strengthening Community Engagement at the Trans Europe Halles Meeting 71, titled ‘Shifting Gears’ in Tartu, Estonia. The meeting brought together representatives from nearly fifty of Europe’s leading independent cultural institutions and was an exciting opportunity for fD to present its Creative Safe Haven model to a wider European audience. Special thanks to Lemmitt Kaplinski for joining fD’s workshop and discussing his process and challenges in providing safe haven for cheap oakley Georgian poet Zurab Rtveliashvili, adding the necessary personalized perspective. ‘Shifting Gears’ included several performances, short presentations, workshops and discussions investigating the potentials for creative collaboration, artist mobility, resource exchange and capacity building between TEH member organizations. Congratulations to the Creative Center Carnation for hosting an exciting and productive meeting. As Tartu’s first full engagement with the international arts community, Meeting 71 was an important moment in the history of that city’s growing art and culture scene.

LIMA, PERU: Presentation of Spanish-language guide for Art Spaces Hosting Activism

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

From March 22-27, 2011, freeDimensional director, Todd Lester was invited to present the publication Art Spaces Hosting Activism & Strengthening Community Engagement - a Tactical Notebook made in collaboration with New Tactics in Human Rights - at two venues in Lima, Peru. This was the second meeting of Residencias en Red [iberoamérica]. R_en_R [i] was founded in November 2008 at a meeting organized by the Cultural Center of Spain in Sao Paulo. The initiative supports the creation of a network intended to strengthen the organizational capacities of residency programs and to generate a space for dialogue between art spaces at the regional level, as well as promoting artist Gafas Ray Ban outlet mobility. There were over 20 artist residency programs in attendance at the encounter, which gave freeDimensional a wonderful opportunity to share its model of Creative Safe Haven more broadly in the region.

March 2nd Conference Call on Democracy Movements in Egypt, the Middle East & North Africa

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The Arts & Democracy Project (with moderators Andrea Assaf and fD founder Todd Lester) invites you to join a nation-wide conference call discussing the role of arts and culture in the extraordinary people’s movements in Egypt and Libya and the protests for democracy sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East. Gain insights on Arab and Arab-American perspectives, and learn about how artists and cultural organizers in the Cheap NFL Jerseys region and in the U.S. are participating and responding. The call features Dalia Basiouny, writer & theatre artist (Egypt); Ahmed Issawi, Alwan for the Arts (NYC); and Khaled Mattawa, poet & professor (Michigan). Wednesday, March 2, 12:00pm EST/9:00am PST. RSVP for the call-in number at rsvp@artsanddemocracy.org

'Men & Women' by Umida Akhmedova screens in NYC

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

You may remember early this year when an Uzbek court found, Umida Akhmedova, a documentary director guilty of slander for making a film on the difficulties faced by newly married women in the authoritarian Central Asian state. Umida Akhmedova was convicted of “offence through mass media” by the court in the capital Tashkent after government experts found her documentary “offensive for the Ray Ban outlet Uzbek nation”. She could have been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but was released under an amnesty in honour of the 18th anniversary of Uzbek independence. Her film Men & Women will be screened during the New York Eurasian Film Festival. In the midst of her difficulties with the Uzbek state (and courts), freeDimensional, Producciones Serrano and the Festival Against Censorship worked together to provide her with a two-month Creative Safe Haven residency in Bilbao, Spain. Read about Umida’s ordeal in the Guardian newspaper here.

Amplifying Critical Voices

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

freeDimensional director, Todd Lester, gives keynote talk at the International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts (IETM) meeting in Glasgow, Scotland (4-7 Nov 2010). IETM is invited to come together in Glasgow this Autumn, to explore our many possible futures together under the working theme of VOICES. See his hand-drawn slides here!

fD receives award @ Festival Against Censorship in Bilbao

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

fD received the annual No Censorship award at the 5th Festival Against Censorship in Bilbao, Spain. fD and the Creative Resistance Fund work with the Festival Against Censorship to make travel grants and provide local accommodation each year for artists in danger due to their use of creativity to fight injustice. Last year this emergency support was provided to Fahed Halabi, an artist decrying the oppression of women within his own Druze community. This year the support has already helped Umida Akhmedova, Uzbek photographer who was charged with http://www.oakleyonorder.com/ criminal defamation of the state due to her documentary photography exhibit, Women and Men, from Dusk until Dawn. Umida and Todd Lester, fD director, gave a panel discussion at this year’s Festival Against Censorship.

Future Residency talks @ Res Artis meeting in Montreal

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

fD director leads call-and-response panels between activists and residency innovators at the Res Artis General Meeting in Montreal, Canada (Oct 5-10). Read more about Future Residency - Hosting & Hospitality in the Era of Globalization in the conference programme.