19 October: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst kindly invites you to the public forum of New World Academy #4: The Art of Creating a State (with the participation of several DAI-students)
A public discussion with the participants of the fourth New World Academy (NWA) on the role of art and culture in the creation of new states, on Sunday 19 October 2014, 17.00–19.00 hrs at BAK.
Speakers: Moussa Ag Assarid (writer and representative of the National Liberation Movement of Azawad), Mazou Ibrahim Touré (artist, Artists Association of Azawad), Remco van Bladel (designer), Gabriëlle Provaas (filmmaker), Rob Schröder (filmmaker), Yazan Khalili (artist), Iva Petkovic (representative of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, UNPO), and participants of NWA.
NWA is an educational platform that invites stateless political organizations to exchange with artists and students on the role of art and culture in political struggle. The fourth session focuses on the political movement called the National Liberation Movement of Azawad (MNLA). The MNLA consists of an alliance of peoples from the Sahel and Sahara regions—Tuareg, Songhai, Fula, and Arabs—who collectively demand that two-thirds of the northern part of Mali be recognized as their independent, multiethnic, and multireligious state of Azawad. The history of the Azawadian revolutionary movement lies in the resistance against the French-Sudanese colony and the foundation of the French-backed state of Mali in 1960. To date, four armed rebellions have taken place since the establishment of the Malian state, the last one being in 2012.
The role of art, literature, and music has been crucial in maintaining visibility and representing the stateless state of Azawad both within the region and internationally. During the open forum, invited speakers and participants present proposals for new models of representation of unacknowledged states, which are in turn debated collectively.
NWA is established by artist Jonas Staal in collaboration with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, and functions as a department of the New World Summit, an artistic and political organization dedicated to developing parliaments for organizations banned from democracy. The first three sessions of NWA took place in 2013 and were organized in collaboration with the cultural workers of the National Democratic Movement of the Philippines, the collective of refugees We Are Here, and the open-source advocates of the international Pirate Parties.
The fourth session is organized in collaboration with the MNLA and the Artists Association of Azawad.