I thought members might be interested in this.
Disarming Images
(Picturing Dissent in America, 2001-5)
In times of social unrest, artists' creativity can serve as a catalyst for
change and challenge the status quo. Artists Against the War, a working
collective, was organized just before the US invasion of Iraq, in the belief
that politics and art can and must coexist.
Over the past two years the group has produced a series of events, as well
as witnessed an unprecedented rise and diversity in anti-war grassroots
movements in the US (from seasoned pacifists to military families). There
has been an outpouring of visual energy - from artists, these same grass
roots organizations, and individual citizens - in an effort to arouse public
awareness to the crimes of this war; there is a new level of creativity and
originality in expressing opposition nonviolently. We see the appropriation
of artists' methods by a broad public intent on effectively expressing their
dissent.
Yet, this formidable outcry by a significant part of the US public has
inadequately been covered and often misrepresented by mainstream media.
Artists Against the War is preparing a traveling exhibition entitled
Disarming Images. It will be a compilation of some of the most powerful
visual material opposing the war in Iraq in a multi-faceted media
installation that reflects the alternative, cutting edge, and traditional
media currently employed in this new activism. It will display the vitality
of the grass roots movement: readings and performances, public
installations, street and web art, billboards and murals, photographs and
films. The presentation will range from sequenced images of activist
projects by professional and amateur photographers, to film footage and
video clips drawn from DVDs and Web QuickTime.
The project will be an easily
transportable DVD kit that may be adapted to the conditions of each venue.
Each kit will include the projection and video material (choreographed for
single or multiple monitors and/or full wall projection), image files
prepared for printing, and suggestions for installations.
Some of the many inclusions will be Not in Our Name's street performance Our
Grief is Not a Cry for War and the Not in Our Name Statement, published as a
full-page ad in newspapers across the country shortly after 9/11, Paul
Chan's Baghdad Snapshot Action (street posters based on everyday photos of
Iraqi people), Eyes Wide Open (hundreds of military boots installed first at
the Judson Church in NY, which subsequently traveled across the US), and the
newly released DVD project Shocking and Awful, Deep Dish TV's documentary
about the war in Iraq and the accompanying dissent (screened in January,
2005 at the Museum of Modern Art) and Larry Litt's The Blame Show.
We hope to both inspire and inform. We wish to affect those who have not yet
participated in actions of dissent.
Artists Against the War is currently submitting this proposal to a select
group of cultural institutions to gather the financial support for the DVD
and an accompanying book. We intend to distribute the project as widely as
possible, both in the US and abroad.
For further information please contact Ann Messner, at 212 598 0293
Email: [log in to unmask]
Dr Jeremy Valentine
Media, Communication and Sociology
Queen Margaret University College
Edinburgh
EH12 8TS
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