| 3,14LIVE |
A WORLD STRUGGLING FOR A NEW EQUILIBRIUM
17.03.2022, 17:00 -20:00
at KUNSTHALL 3,14 & Litteraturhuset (Literature House) i Bergen
Let´s talk about peace, war and art.
In a world in conflict, what can art as a weapon do?
Welcome to a public talk about means of resistance, solidarity, and our struggle to solve problems. The world needs a deeper understanding of how to prevent armed conflicts, end wars, and find other ways to solve domestic and international relations disputes.
The world sees authoritarianism on the rise, democracy and ecosystems is under threat, and right now we see a democratic European country invaded. There is a need for creativity and resistance. This evening the discussion will be around art and activism, hope and resilience!
On the streets of many countries, thousands upon thousands of people have demonstrated and been imprisoned, and many have lost their lives. Like the civil society in Myanmar, which is our case study this evening through Marcelo Brodsky's exhibition 'Stand for Democracy' at Kunsthall 3,14.
In Russia, the number of demonstrators is high even though the persecution penalties have increased. International society has to defend the participants in their freedom fights and give the people standing up against regimes its fullest support in the struggle for democracy and human rights.
The event will start in an art exhibition at Kunsthall 3,14 and end up at Litteraturhuset (Literature House) in Bergen. A rare and unique collaboration between a handful of people and organizations working for peace:
Marcelo Brodsky, Argentina
Human Rights Art Initiative, Switzerland
Norwegian Human Rights Fund, Oslo
Rafto Foundation, Bergen
Kunsthall 3,14, Bergen
Program:
17:00-17:30 (Vågsallmenningen 12, 2nd floor)
– Marcelo Brodsky talks about his exhibition at Kunsthall 3,14
17.45- 20:00 (Litteraturhuset)
17.45- 19:00
– “Arts vs the coup: Creative protests with a showcase from Myanmar” – A panel discussion with Maung Maung Myint (NUG Representative to Norway), Maria Brinch (artist), Jostein Kobbeltveit (Executive Director, the Rafto Foundation), and Chris Duckett (the Human Rights Art Initiative). The panel discussion will be moderated by Ingeborg Moa (Executive Director, Norwegian Human Rights Fund).
19:00-19:15 – Break
19:15-19:45
– “Methods of Driving Forces with Soft Power” – A conversation between Marcelo Brodsky (artist and human rights activist) and Frans Jacobi (Head of the Art Academy, University of Bergen) on the role of art in activism in political processes.
19:15-20:00 – Q&A
Free entrance
Participants bios:
Marcelo Brodsky (1954) lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. An artist and political activist, Marcelo Brodsky was forced into exile in Barcelona following General Videla’s coup in Argentina in 1976. He studied economics at the University of Barcelona as well as photography at the Centre Internacional de Fotografia in Barcelona. His work is exhibited world wide and part of major museum collections such as the Tate Gallery in London,Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, The center for creative Photography in Tucson, University of Arizona, Sprengel Museum in Germany, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo in Brazil, Lima Art Museum in Peru, Colección de Arte del Banco de la República in Colombia and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
He began his project Buena Memoria, a visual essay that deals with the experiences and emotions of those who lived through dictatorship and with the consequences of the disappeared by state terror in his generation. Brodsky had many solo and group shows and his work is part of major collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Tate Gallery in London, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires), Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, The center for creative Photography in Tucson, University of Arizona, Sprengel Museum in Germany, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo in Brazil, Lima Art Museum in Peru, Colección de Arte del Banco de la República in Colombia and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Brodsky has represented Argentina in several international biennials including the Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon [fr](2017-2018), Rencontres d'Arles (2018), Dakar Biennale (2018), São Paulo Art Biennial (2010), Valencia (2007) and International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (2000).
Brodsky is a member of the human rights organization Asociación Buena Memoria.[15] He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Remembrance park (Parque de la memoria), a sculpture park and large monument with names and a gallery, built in Buenos Aires to the memory of victims of state terrorism.
Maung Maung Myint is the National Unity Government (NUG) of Myanmar’s Representative to Norway, and was one of the founding members as well as Editor of the Democratic Voice of Burma. Originally from Myanmar and with a background as a journalist and writer, he has worked extensively on Burmese matters the last three decades. Maung Maung Myint has previously been Board Member of the Norwegian Burma Committee, and his long journalistic career includes positions as Burma Representative and Jury Member of Reporters Without Borders, as well as President of the Burma Media Association. He is also a dentist by training.
Frans Jacobi is the Head of The Art Academy in Bergen (uib). He works with performance, text and images. His performances and installations are often large scale scenarios with multiple participants adressing a range of political and societal issues. Using a kind of urgent aesthetics the temporality and presence becomes a point in itself.
Jacobi completed his doctoral research with the project 'Aesthetics of Resitance'. Here performance is used as an experimental stage, where various themes of revolt and collectivity are probed and reflected. These performances are structured like an intertwined play of the dual figures 'the artist/researcher' and the 'sense-event'.
Aesthetics of Resistance. Doctorate Dissertation at Malmö Art Academy / Lund University, 5. December 2012:
'Aesthetics of Resistance' deals with contemporary demonstration culture and political activism, seen as performance through performance. It consists of both a practical and a theoretical part. These are intertwined on various levels of the project.
The claim of 'Aesthetics of Resistance' is that in recent examples of Direct Activism, politics are constituted by the aesthetic; as performance, form and style. This assumption is argued for by selecting 8 specific moments where this seems to be the case. These moments are chosen from 5 sequences of events, from a small incident in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2006 to the Egyptian uprising that gained global significance in 2011. The core part of the project is two sequences of confrontations between activists and authorities that both took place in Copenhagen, Denmark -The Youth House Movement 2007/08 and the large scale actions surrounding the UN Climate Summit COP15 in 2009 respectively.
Central to the project is an idea of 'thinking with the senses'. In order to facilitate this, an experimental set-up was created, where a sensorial reflection could be compared with an analytical interpretation of the topic in question. This experimental set-up was constituted by the two figures: The artist/researcher and the sense-event. These two figures intertwine and in various ways stage the gap between discursive and non-discursive thinking that lies at the core of this project.
Jostein Hole Kobbeltvedt was appointed Executive Director of the Rafto Foundation for Human Rights in 2016. He has a comprehensive background as a human rights advocate, including from Norwegian Church Aid where has served as policy advisor and held several management positions.
Kobbeltvedt has a long track record of working with civil society groups and social movements in Africa, South-America and Asia and from advocacy towards the United Nations (UN), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He served as the Area Representative for Southern Africa in Norwegian Church Aid, based in South Africa (2011-2014). Kobbeltvedt was a member of the UNCTAD working group on responsible sovereign lending and borrowing (2009-2011). He has worked as a policy advisor for the African Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) in Zimbabwe.
Kobbeltvedt holds an MSc in Comparative Politics from London School of Economics and a bachelor degree from the Universities of Oslo and Bergen.
Maria Brinch (1984) is an artist based in Norway, and has worked with several artists in Myanmar and Uganda over the years. Maria Brinch has been working with the Bergen based gallery Entré and is part of the Norwegian Arts Abroad (NAA) program made to elevate the Norwegian art fields internationally. A new interdisciplinary competence program.
Maria Brinch is educated from the Art Academy in Oslo and the School of Visual Arts i New York. Her practice incorporates social aspects of craft, where the exchange of traditional knowledge is a platform for personal narratives and political experiences across cultures, resources and prerequisites. In recent years, Brinch has collaborated with artists in Yangon in Myanmar and Kampala in Uganda. Her work has previously been shown at the Artists' Association (Oslo), Gallery LNM (Oslo), Myanmart Gallery (Yangon in Myanmar), HOT Sculpture Garden (Kampala in Uganda) and NADA Art Fair (New York).
Chris Duckett has, for 21 successive years, worked for the advancement and defence of human rights worldwide for and with leading human rights organizations. He is Principal and Senior Consultant at Duckett Consulting (Switzerland), which he founded in 2017 to secure the sustainability of international, regional and national level human rights organizations operating across five continents. He has consulted for the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (Sydney), FORUM-ASIA (Bangkok), International Commission of Jurists (Geneva), Korea Future Initiative (Seoul/London), Norwegian Human Rights Fund (Oslo) and numerous other human rights and rule of law organisations. From 2009-16, Chris was head of development at the International Service for Human Rights (Geneva) where he co-conceptualized programmes and secured funding for a number of successful projects which increased the recognition and protection of human rights defenders. Before that, from 2002-09, he founded and managed Franciscans International’s long running Asia programme, and was part of the team that successfully advocated for the creation of first special procedures mandate of the UN Human Rights Council (the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery). Chris also serves on the Board of Directors of UPR Info (Geneva), Restitution (London) and art+château (Berne). Raised in California, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Masters degree from Lund University, Sweden.
Ingeborg Moa will be the moderator for this event and she is the Executive Director of the Norwegian Human Rights Fund. The former Director of Activism and Organizational Development at Amnesty International Norway, and has nearly two decades of international experience working with local organizations and human rights defenders around the world.
Links:
nhrf.no (Norwegian Human Rights Fund)