meanwhile: Dreams of a Sovereign Citizen
talk by Brandon LaBelle
film by Savas Boyraz
reading-group (Democratic Confederalism)
discussion led by Åse Løvgren
4.floor Auditorium, Institute of Art, C.Sundstgate 53, Bergen
Wednesday, April 26th at 20h
As part of an ongoing artistic research on political crises SYNSMASKINEN now invites to an informal evening of talks, film, reading and discussion on the topic of democracy.
Professor Brandon LaBelle have during the last 6 months been travelling intensely creating a series of ‘dreams’, contemplating questions of democratic crisis and the realities of loss, disenfranchisement, precarity, and insecurity that shape contemporary life: Utopian visions, hopes for the future, dreams of solidarity, or of standing alone, withdrawn; organizational principles, creative instituting, formations of tribes and festivities, and the desire for togetherness, especially that which may unsettle or renew the inherent insurrectionary drive at the heart of the imagination.
As an addition to LaBelle’s research on these issues SYNSMASKINEN now initiates a reading group on the issue of Democratic Confederalism as it is formulated by the kurdish thinker/politician Abdullah Öcalan. We
start the reading-group this evening by reading a couple of text-fragments by Öcalan.
To introduce the realm of kurdish democratic thinking we have invited the turkish/kurdish artist Savas Boyraz to screen his film ‘meanwhile…’: An experimental film, silently following a group of guerrillas in the
mountains of Kurdistan for a day. A film about mountain, human, life and future…
We end the evening with a discussion on citizenship, non-state democracy and the crisis of representation, led by artist/curator Åse Løvgren.
www.synsmaskinen.net/syn/art/dreams-of-a-sovereign-citizen
www.savasboyraz.com