[p2p-research] Fwd: [Newsletter] Exhibition on the counter-globalization movement in Canada

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Oliver Ressler <oliver at ressler.at>
Date: Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 11:00 PM
Subject: [Newsletter] Exhibition on the counter-globalization movement in
Canada
To: newsletter at ressler.at


A WORLD WHERE MANY WORLDS FIT
An exhibition on the counter-globalization movement

Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop's University
Sherbrooke, Canada
January 27 to March 20, 2010
http://www.ubishops.ca/foreman/english/exhibitions/2009-2010/worlds/index.html

Artists: ATSA (Canada), Zanny Begg (Australia), Etcétera (Argentina), Petra
Gerschner (Germany), John Jordan (England), Oliver Ressler (Austria), ®TMark
(United States), Gregory Sholette (United States), Nuria Vila + Marcelo
Expósito (Spain), Dmitry Vilensky (Russia)

Curated by Oliver Ressler



The trope “A World Where Many Worlds Fit” goes back to the Subcomandante
Marcos, when talking about the Zapatistas’ struggles in the Lacandonian
Rainforest in Mexico. Since their uprising in 1994 the Zapatistas have been
fighting for a less-hierarchic autonomous world where more options exist for
involvement in democratic decision-making processes. They fight against an
existing world, which calls itself “democratic”, but should rather be seen
as a form of sophisticated oligarchy that functions in favor of the
interests of the political and economic elite. While the Mexican army and
paramilitary mercenaries are brutally defending this exclusive world of the
elite in Chiapas, in the part of the world where I am coming from
(Austria/Europe) the stick that punishes people who envision another world
is usually not so visible. But this can change suddenly in times when those
in power assemble in the framework of the summits of World Bank,
International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, World Economic Forum
or the G8. Though the decisions made by the politicians and business leaders
at these meetings affect the lives of all people in the world, the
negotiations take place hidden from the public gaze behind fences and
ten-thousands of riot-police, becoming, therefore, a symbol for the
undemocratic and illegitimate formation of global capitalism.

At each of these summits individual and collective singularities from all
over the world come together to express that they – we – are opposed to this
way of making decisions and ruling the world. These mobilizations against
the summits form the movements’ most visible public appearance, movements
that according to most narratives, originated at the 1999 protest against
the World Trade Organization in Seattle. These articulated forms of
resistance and protest in the center of capitalism, were strong enough to
shut down the WTO summit in Seattle. Since 1999 this global movement has
been showing up at each meeting of World Bank, IMF, WTO, WEF – unless, that
is, the scared politicians decided to meet in the mountains, in deserts or
in dictatorships in order to avoid the public manifestations of dissent at
their summits. Even though this movement is the first that is truly
globalized, it is usually being called counter-globalization movement. I
prefer calling it the “movement of the movements”.

At the demonstrations, counter-summits and mass blockades many individuals
and collectives come together: media activists, clown army, pink block,
naked block, black block, anarchists, socialists, Trotskyists, members of
ATTAC, human rights activists, feminists, migrants, indigenous people,
artists, etc. All these singularities have their own images, banners,
different public appearance and slogans, which not only represent something,
but contribute to the creation of effective blockades and to the creation of
a space. This space of representation is also a space for action that in the
best cases spreads to other areas such as the local neighborhoods of the
activists. This new social subject, sometimes referred to as “the
multitude”, builds horizontally organized networks and has a radial
transformation of society in mind.

The exhibition “A World Where Many Worlds Fit” at the Foreman Art Gallery of
Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke is based on a section I curated for the
Taipei Biennial in 2008 that presents the global movement as the brilliant
example of collective intelligence it is through a variety of artistic
practices. The exhibition features the work of 10 artists that focus
directly on the counter-globalization movement. All artists show a strong
commitment to the social movement and do not position themselves as
“neutral” in relation to the movement. Many of the works focus on one of the
cities whose name has become shorthand for demonstrations, counter-summits
and/or blockades: Seattle, Prague, Québec City, Genoa, Buenos Aires,
Gleneagles, St. Petersburg or Heiligendamm.


For further information on the participating artists and images from the
pervious exhibition at the Taipei Biennial 2008 please check
http://www.ressler.at/a_world_where_many_worlds_fit/





_______________________________________________
Ressler_newsletter mailing list
newsletter at ressler.at
http://mailman.mediainvent.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ressler_newsletter




-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100208/f8a03600/attachment-0001.html>