Global Futures Forum 2013 Event

For decades, the Western media have shown Iraq and Iran as threats to global peace. This summer, Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art, Design & Media, in partnership with Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org), is holding an event that will challenge these conceptions. Entitled “10 Years On: Art and Everyday Life in Iraq and Iran”, this two-day public forum will open wide discussions about society, culture and everyday life in Iraq and Iran.

Bringing together specialists and professionals in mass media, the visual and performing arts, cultural and social studies and history the forum, which will be held at the Mosaic Rooms, Kensington, will examine Western representations of Iraq and Iran. But, more importantly, the forum will offer diverse alternative accounts of real life in Iraq and Iran today.

The event programme will include talks by Iraqi American artist Wafaa Bilal, BBC news journalist Rageh Omaar and art historian Kathy Battista and a panel, moderated by Anthony Downey of Ibraaz, in the session WHERE TO NOW: Everyday Culture in Iraq Today, featuring panelists Adel Abidin, Rijin Sahakian, Omar Kholeif and Jananne Al-Ani. There will also be a lecture performance by the arts collective Slavs and Tatars, followed by the launch of their new book Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz.

As well as event speakers and panelists, media including film, fine arts and design will contribute to a vital and creative debate touching on the related significance of the ‘Arab Spring,’ multiple performances and mediations of politics and identities, the changing status of men and women in these societies in political and cultural crisis, the places of contemporary art and everyday life, as well as the peoples originally from Iraq and Iran now living in, or between, Britain and the Middle East. In the process, it will take up a politics and an economics of representation: who gets to represent whom? How do individuals and communities represent themselves and with what means? Whose representations count, have currency, are circulated, and validated as knowledge?

Forum Programme (subject to slight change)

Day One: Friday, 7th June 2013

09:30 am – 10:30 am: Registration and coffee / tea

Session Theme – Contemporary Art in Iraq and Iran (Chair: Jonathan Harris)

10:30 am – 10.45 am: Welcome address (Jonathan Harris)

10:45 am – 11.30 am: Extended Paper by Rijin Sahakian (including video about organisation Sada, which supports emerging Iraqi artists)

11:30 am – 1:00 pm: 4 papers by invited speakers, including Reem Alasadi, Jamal Penjweny, Shirley Elghanian and Noor Kadhim with Daniel McClean, with interspersed Q&A

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm: Lunch

Session Theme – Women and Power (Chair: August Jordan Davis)

2:00 pm – 3:30 pm: 3 papers by Kathy Battista, Siba Aldabbagh and Rima Chahrour, with interspersed Q&A

3:30 pm – 4:00 pm: Coffee / Tea Break

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Panel discussion with all speakers from Day One as a ‘round-up’ plenary

5.00 pm – 6.00 pm: Extended Paper/Performance by Slavs and Tatars (performance/lecture)

6:00 pm: Book Launch for Slavs and Tatars’ “Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi'ite Showbiz” (drinks and refreshments)

7:00 pm: Meal for invited speakers only with WSA hosts and Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org)

Day Two: Saturday, 8th June 2013

09:30 am – 10:30 am: Registration and coffee / tea

Session Theme – Media and Alternative Accounts (Chair: Victoria Walters)

10:30 am – 11.30 am: Welcome address and Extended Paper by Rageh Omaar (together with one respondent, tbc)

11:30 am – 1:00 pm: 3 papers by Shireen Walton, Adel Abidin and Daria Kirsanova with interspersed Q&A

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm: Lunch

Session Theme - Where to Now: Contemporary Art in Iraq (Chair: Anthony Downey)

2:00 pm – 3.00 pm: Talk by Wafaa Bilal, followed by an In Conversation session with Anthony Downey

3:00 pm – 3.30 pm: Coffee / Tea Break

3:30 pm – 5:00 pm: Panel Session – Anthony Downey (Moderator), Adel Abidin, Rijin Sahakian, Omar Kholeif, Jananne Al-Ani

5:00 pm – 6:00pm: Plenary discussion covering the whole two-day conference

6:00 pm: Networking and drinks (cash-bar)

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The Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design and Media is based at Winchester School of Art (WSA) and highlights historical, contemporary and future roles for art, design and media within globalization. See www.soton.ac.uk/wrc

Ibraaz is the leading critical forum on visual culture in North Africa and the Middle East. Initiated by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation, it was launched at the 54th Venice Biennale as an online publishing platform. See www.ibraaz.org

Tickets for this event are priced £20 (delegates) or £5 (concessions, including students)

Click here to purchase tickets for this event.