#47: Artists need to be supported more than ever in the development of their practice due to the gaps that have been created in the field of fine art|#107: Build a community / scene.|#60: Look after all tools. The moment it looks like things are missing it means that things are missing.|#132: Things will always look weird when you’re the first doing it.|#35: The artist fee should be good.|#119: Be a space of production.|#59: Always protect the floor when painting (or pouring concrete)|#10: Don’t be obsessed with numbers.|#19: Have fun at the exhibition.|#51: How do we invite the true unknown?|#117: Consider design, organisational structures and architecture as programme.|#90: The best systems have a failure or ‘a hole’ in them…|#3: Entrance to all exhibitions at Kunsthal Gent is free.|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#127: Remain practical: what happens to the work in an endless exhibition?|#65: No excuses: Thursday morning, team meeting.|#130: Be a uniquely charged and curated gallery that is an artwork in itself.|#33: We will ensure work by female artists and curators make up at least 50% of our programme each year.|#120: The new type of art institute cannot merely be an art museum as it has been until now, but no museum at all. The new type will be more like a power station, a producer of new energy.|#57: Volunteers must be: cared for / hands on / ready to learn / willing to share / in it to win it / show new or old tricks.|#70: Have the office space inside the exhibition space, it reminds of you what you are doing.|#75: A building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation.|#61: No all male install teams.|#141: Start a Publication Studio at Kunsthal Gent in the nearby future.|#36: We support production separately.|#47: Artists need to be supported more than ever in the development of their practice due to the gaps that have been created in the field of fine art|#107: Build a community / scene.|#60: Look after all tools. The moment it looks like things are missing it means that things are missing.|#132: Things will always look weird when you’re the first doing it.|#35: The artist fee should be good.|#119: Be a space of production.|#59: Always protect the floor when painting (or pouring concrete)|#10: Don’t be obsessed with numbers.|#19: Have fun at the exhibition.|#51: How do we invite the true unknown?|#117: Consider design, organisational structures and architecture as programme.|#90: The best systems have a failure or ‘a hole’ in them…|#3: Entrance to all exhibitions at Kunsthal Gent is free.|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#127: Remain practical: what happens to the work in an endless exhibition?|#65: No excuses: Thursday morning, team meeting.|#130: Be a uniquely charged and curated gallery that is an artwork in itself.|#33: We will ensure work by female artists and curators make up at least 50% of our programme each year.|#120: The new type of art institute cannot merely be an art museum as it has been until now, but no museum at all. The new type will be more like a power station, a producer of new energy.|#57: Volunteers must be: cared for / hands on / ready to learn / willing to share / in it to win it / show new or old tricks.|#70: Have the office space inside the exhibition space, it reminds of you what you are doing.|#75: A building is a capricious thing: it is inhabited and changed, and its existence is a tale of constant and curious transformation.|#61: No all male install teams.|#141: Start a Publication Studio at Kunsthal Gent in the nearby future.|#36: We support production separately.|
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07—21.06.2021 17:00

Cairography Collective + Disarming Design, Sandberg Instituut

Pay what you can

LANGUAGE CAFE:
The Language of Oppression and Resistance

An initiative of Cairography Collective in residence at Kunsthal Gent, in collaboration with Disarming Design Sandberg Institute.

Curators: Siwar Kraitem and Rasha Dakkak

Monday 7 + 21 June, 17:00 to 19:00, online @Kunsthal Gent

‘Language Café’ is a recurring zoom-based meeting that revolves around language, design, translation, and politics. It roots its conversations within and through contemporary perspectives from the Arabic speaking region and the diaspora. Issues such as translation, canonic hegemony, migration, and politics of terminology are explored. A project of Cairography Collective developed during their residency at Kunsthal Gent, the collective is working in tandem with guest curators from the body of the students of the ‘Disarming Design’ Master's program at the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam. The language 'café' takes on a different nature each time people gather. With a new menu and suggested imaginary for each session, the hosts and curators play multiple roles, including that of the moderator.

The first series of the café, titled "The Language of Oppression and Resistance" will tackle the language used in media, social media, the power play, and the battle of narratives over what has taken place and continues to take place in Palestine in the last month. Notions and terms such as Nakba, Intifada, colonialism, and gentrification will be explored. During these two sessions, we will unpack, using examples, the role language played primarily on social media but also on newspaper headlines and other media outlets, in deescalating, neutralizing, banking on, and censoring. We are also particularly interested in addressing the language of algorithms and how it was utilized to take down posts, delete pages, as well as the artistic maneuvers and anti-imperialist digital strategies that were employed to counteract the censoring of content in solidarity with Palestine.

Throughout the two sessions, we hope to create a humble archive as well as a glossary of terms for those instances with contested language that can be used as case studies.

We extend this invitation to designers, linguists, artists, and activists to take part and bring examples that will help stir up the conversation.

Cairography Collective

The Cairography Collective proposes 'independent publishing' as the primary means by which Arab thinkers, writers and artists can find a place in art discourse and practice, in defiance of aesthetic consensus. The collective opposes the homogenisation, vilification or stereotyping of the 'Arab' and criticises practices that exoticise or generalise, through publications, workshops and language cafes that highlight the sensitivities around language and difference, alternative conferences that break with rigid and sometimes slow forms of knowledge creation through informal exchange around themes.

In June, Cairography Collective has planned three activities: two Language Café meetings and an alternative conference PRiCKS, entitled 'Touching Publication', on Wednesday 9 June, 17-20.

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