Cities, Art and Recovery
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
Join Lower Manhattan Cultural Council this September 8-11 in the first of two international summits focused on arts and culture after catastrophe.
For details and event registration, visit www.lmcc.net/recovery
Artists, performers, writers, architects, lawyers, scholars, activists, community and political leaders from a range of contexts that have been directly affected and transformed by violence will gather in downtown Manhattan in a public exchange of stories, strategies, ideas and memories.
Over three days of roundtable discussions, performances, films, and art installations in all media, Cities, Art and Recovery will consider how people remember and rebuild after tragedy and how the arts have been crucial to such recovery.
Roundtables:
Design of Recovery
Friday, September 9, 2pm
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.
What are the political and aesthetic challenges of rebuilding after disaster? How do architects and planners balance utilitarian, economic and technological issues against those of environment, cultural heritage and local practice?
Sultan Barakat, Director, Post-War Reconstruction and Development Unit, University of York, UK
Craig Dykers, architect, Snøhetta, Oslo, Norway
Jad Tabet, architect, Tabet Architects and Planners, Paris, France/Lebanon
Eyal Weizman, architect, Tel Aviv/London;
Moderator: Lebbeus Woods, artist, professor, Cooper Union, New York, USA
Afterword: Language of Recovery
Saturday, September 10, 10am
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.
What are the demands placed on language and writing by disaster? How does writing after catastrophe work as advocacy, witness, mirror, mourning, elegy or indictment?
Biljana Srbljanovic, playwright, Serbia
Lyonel Trouillot, writer, Haiti
Semezdin Mehmedinovic, writer, Bosnia/USA
Brigitte Oleschinski, poet, Germany
Moderator: Ammiel Alcalay, writer, translator, USA.
Arts of Emergency
Saturday, September 10, 3pm
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.
How are artists provoked by the mechanisms of destruction and terror? How does photography, painting and performance intervene to restore face and voice, expose the erasures of history and demand recognition?
Gerald McMaster, Deputy Assistant Director, Cultural Resources, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian, Plains Cree, Canada
Dijana Milosevic, Artistic Director, DAH Teatar, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
Leo Rubinfien, photographer, New York, USA
Camilo Jose Vergara, photographer, Chile/USA
Revenge, Reparation, Reconciliation
Saturday, September 10, 4:30pm
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.
How can artistic media be used by formerly hostile groups to reconcile opposing points of view, recognize divergent historical narratives and promote trust? What cultural strategies do advocates, jurists and activists employ to effect accountability and foster healing?
Elazar Barkan, Director, Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation, Salzburg Seminar, Austria and Professor, Claremont Graduate University, USA
Gillian Caldwell, Executive Director, Witness, New York, USA
Avila Kilmurray, Director, Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, Belfast, UK
Duma Kumalo, Arts and Culture Officer, Khulumani, Johannesburg, South Africa
Moderator: Vasuki Nesiah, Senior Associate, International Center for Transitional Justice, Sri Lanka/USA
Remembrance, Repetition, Residue
Sunday, September 11, 10am
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.
What is the relationship of memory and forgetting to the recovery of daily life after trauma? How are the arts of memorymuseums, memorials, archivessentinels of the future?
Horst Hoheisel, artist, Kassel, Germany
Vannak Huy, Researcher, Documentation Center (DC-CAM), Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Suada Kapic, Director, FAMA International, Sarajevo, Bosnia
Patricia Tappatá de Valdez, Director, Memoria Abierta, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Moderator: James Young, Professor, English and Judaic Studies, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.
Arts of Possibility
Sunday, September 11, 3:30pm
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers St.
Can cultural and symbolic forms help to imagine a future while remembering the past and mourning loss? Can artistic strategies serve as antidotes to revenge, sorrow and despair to restore hope, encourage safety, and return the promise of tomorrow?
Robert Kluyver, Executive Director, Foundation for Culture and Civil Society, Kabul, Afghanistan
Dijana Milosevic, Artistic Director, DAH Teatar, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
Maysoon Pachachi, filmmaker, Iraq/UK
Clive van den Berg, artist/curator, Johannesburg, South Africa
Moderator:Clifford Chanin, President, Legacy Project, New York, USA
For details and event registration, visit www.lmcc.net/recovery