Paula Urbano

PROGRAM Queens Museum July 18 3-5 p.m.

3-3.30 pm
Video Performance: Paula Urbano (SE), Collect the (un)connected and (re)connect the Uncollected (2015-2019).
3.30-4 pm
Video screening: Selma Selman (BA), Runo Lagomarsino (SE), Fikret Atay (TR/SE), Katarina Pirak Sikku (SE/Sapmi) and Linda Karin Larsen (NO/DK).
4-5 pm
Panel Talk: Linda Karin Larsen, Selma Selman, Paula Urbano and Carmen Ferreyra (AR/US), Founding Director of Curatorial Program for Research. Moderated by Susanne Ewerlöf
5-5.30 pm
Performance: Liv Strand (SE), A Walk in the Park (2019)
Gather at the Queens Museum’s entrance to the park.

Shared lands and disputed territories; the concept of nation is connected to peoples will to comply with the places where they reside. Centuries of colonialism and wars have formed a world where everyone is not content with who rules where and makes certain lands impossible to inhabit. According to Benedict Anderson the nation is an imagined community, but it also constitutes a concrete reality as most states are formulated around some idea of a nation – or many under one flag. Groups and subjects may feel belonging to, challenge or feel indifferent to the country they inhabit. Nationalism is a site for struggles of various kinds, played out in battlefields as well as museums.

As this text is being formulated media is reporting that Donald Trump is flexing the US government’s muscles by bringing in a vivid display of the country’s military force during the celebration of 4:th of July, an unprecedented occurrence. A sign not only that the president has drastic ideas of how to display the pride of the US but also that the imagined community is being used and reformulated in new ways in our time, as always.

A Common Ground is an afternoon of events when artists, many from the Nordic realm, points towards some of the complexities intertwined with the hegemonic idea, to divide the world into entities that are nations, nation states or territories where one people, or class, rule over others. Videos and performances are either made for this specific occasion or is selected to shed a light on atrocities throughout time in the name of nation or territory.

A Common Ground is a part in the more extensive workshop; The Trans-Atlantic Meeting on Nationalism(s) that will engage 19 artists during three days in New York in July 2019. This group, most living either in the Nordic Countries or US, represents different perspectives and has come together to share and create knowledge around these complex issues. The historical background to the concept of nations as well as decolonizing strategies will be discussed during lectures and workshops and while experiencing artworks among the group. The intent is to build relationships while revising what it is to be a colonizer, indigenous or a migrant and navigate a world of places.

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Curatorial Program for Research (CPR):
With fully-funded research programs and continuous elevating platforms, CPR creates a socially-conscious network of curators and artists that connect with art scenes in burgeoning cities around the globe.

www.curatorialprogram.org
info@curatorialprogram.org

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The program and the workshop The Transatlantic Meeting on Nationalism(s) has been made possible with the kind support of The Nordic Cultural Fund, The Swedish Art Council, Iaspis – the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Artists and Office for Contemporary Art Norway: OCA.

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