Pictures and Protests: Discussing the Tamil Diaspora Demonstrations

 

In November 2009 SAVAC invited members of the public to contribute images to a Flickr pool–“Reflecting on the 2009 Tamil Diaspora Demonstrations.” This online image archive would serve as a starting point for the workshop discussions, address media representations of the protests, utilizations of digital media, the internet as an archive of current history, the centrality of sound and language, the contested nature of public spaces, and the intimate relationship between identity and modes of social performances.

 

Through lectures, discussions and hands-on exercises, participants examine how these events relate to local ideas of nationalism and multiculturalism, transnational and diaspora political models, and other similar demonstrations in Canada and around the world. The workshops aim to activate the voices that get lost in the dominant representations of the protests, and create a broader dialogue around the social, political and performative efficacy of the protests. Facilitating artists considered photographic and documentary practices and the internet as both tool and archive; public space, ownership, citizenship; the use of language by spectator and participant alike; sound and the body as a device of resistance. These events assisted in organizing SAVAC’s event for the 2010 Tamil Studies Conference at UofT.

We welcome all participants, especially those with no artistic background.

 

 

 

March 28, Abbas Akhavan & Jayce Salloum

Using images and objects from the media and participants' own collections, visual artists Jayce Salloum and Abbas Akhavan look at questions of subjectivity in the experience of conflict. Salloum and Akhavan work with the notion of the personal archive to analyse ideas of history, memory, identity and resistance. Participants will collaborate on the making of a living archive.

 

Materials list:
Please note that the artists request the following for the first workshop:

• each participant to bring: 3-5 images/objects, 8” x 10” to 13” x 19” (that may be altered and not returned), i.e. good quality colour or black and white photocopies, not sentimental, but which speak to personal resonance/reflection on the some aspect of the actions or meditations on them
• bring lists: of things kept track of in relation to the project: images, adjectives, nouns, chronologies, histories, objects, actions, relevant dates, statistics, number of hairs lost etc.
• any favorite tools: i.e. felt pens, pencils, scissors, rulers, stickers

The images do not need to be of the protests themselves. It can be anything related to the ideas that the workshop will be  talking about: a photo or object representing your thoughts and opinions on certain ideas; a photo of whatever you were looking at while your mind was thinking about notions of citizenship; an object related to your own memories (of something or other).

April 10, Nahed Mansour & Meena Murugesan

Performance artist Nahed Mansour will examine issues of the body as it relates to diasporic identities and visual (re)presentation. Participants will discuss and debate the effectiveness of contemporary art strategies in shedding light on these issues. Building on these discussions, dancer Meena Murugesan will facilitate a hands-on activity in which participants will be guided in creating movements and gestures in reference to the Gardiner protests, to developing a collaborative outdoor performance work.

 

Artists discussed by Nahed

• Indigenous artists: Rebecca Belmore, Terrance Houle, Kent Monkman, Adrian Stimson, Lori Blondeau, Nadia Myre, etc.
• International artists: Ana Mendiata, Marina Ambramovic, Mona Hatoum, Adrian Piper, Coco Fusco, Guerillmo Gomez Pena, etc.

 

 

May 1, Gitanjali Lena & Nilan Perera

Participants will work within the aural landscape of the demonstrations, responding to and re-mixing the content and context of the sounds by incorporating the written and spoken practice of the chants as well as the physical sounds of the environment. Writer/spoken word artist Gitanjali Lena will lead the group through the performative and written deconstruction of the chants while sound artist Nilan Perera will facilitate the creation of real time audio mashups of media artifacts and the introduction of new material generated by the participants.