Whilst on a visit to Islamabad, Mirza and Butler witnessed a violence clash between plain clothes police officers and suited lawyers who were protesting outside the supreme court, from the window of the National Gallery. Caught between the images of the gallery inside and the images of real violence occurring outside, as witnesses, Mirza and Butler became participants in an important event.
This raises the question; What position do you take? Do you go outside and intervene, or do you remain a spectator? What would you do? As both artists and citizens Mirza and Butler have considered their positions and perspectives in whether or not one chooses to participate. These questions sparked an investigation into ways of processing the complexities of social and political experience in Pakistan.
Interestingly The Museum of Participation in Urdu translates as The House of the Unexpected, and indeed that might have been a suitable alternative title for this performance. The narratives covered not only what had been witnessed and experienced in Islamabad and Karachi, but also posed questions about how resistance is represented. The Museum of Non Participation focuses on cross-cultural exchange through language and knowledge, but also uses story telling as a method to find and ask the difficult questions about east/west relations, and the representations of those relations.
The most interesting parts of the performance were where the narratives took centre stage. As they were conveying an important story and raising relevant contemporary issues about the politics of aesthetics, I felt that perhaps the format did not offer much more than a conventional lecture might have. However, seeing it played out in the space meant watching others watching became part of the experience. In creating a performance about political dialogic exchange I believe it becomes necessary to instigate a situation where that dialogue might be furthered, as the performance raised questions for me which my familiarity with this project have not been able to answer.
The creation of social spaces and opportunities for new dialogues are increasingly important in artistic practice and particularly where art and politics meet (The Museum of Non Participation's space behind a barbers shop on Bethnal Green Road last year provides an excellent example). Just as we consider the same question as citizens, as artists we must decide whether or not it is necessary to participate and become involved in issues that affect the world beyond artistic practice. As The Museum of Non Participation demonstrates, in participating in one system you choose not to participate in others, so the question for us all becomes not whether to participate... but, how?
All that remains... the Teenagers of Socialism exhibition continues at Waterside Project Space until 25th April 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment