A conversation about current feminist perspectives in Scandinavia and the Middle East.

In collaboration with the Intercultural Museum, First Supper Symposium (FSS) is organizing a symposium in Grønland, Oslo on Saturday 21st October 2017 and workshops on Sunday 22nd. We will be discussing feminism and art from a Scandinavian perspective versus Middle Eastern points of view. The symposium consists of a main debate involving both established and unestablished international as well as Scandinavian key figures from within the field. There will also be a program running parallel and on a smaller scale for which the more sensitive and specific themes are reserved.  With Prologue 3 we endeavour to activate dialogue and discussions around the question of how feminism can be understood aesthetically from various cultural perspectives, and how feminist movements in the Middle East can contribute to a new understanding of the term when put in the Scandinavian transcultural context.

Scheduled participants are Manal AlDowayan (SA),  Bruce W. Ferguson (USA), Nefise Özkal Lorentzen (NO),Tone Olaf Nielsen (DK),Morten Sortodden (NO), Mohamed Soueid (UAE),Javad Parsa, (IR), Fatemeh Ekhtesari (IR), Mehdi Mousavi (IR), Amina Sahan, (NO) and Lamia Abi Azar (LB).

The moderator will be Marianne Bøe (UiB, NO)

Prologue 3 will focus on the meeting of Scandinavian and Middle-Eastern cultures seen from their respective aesthetic expressions and practices. The following questions will be asked:

How do artists who live in, or whose background is the Middle-East, visualize and thematize their understanding of feminism and how is this perspective met in Scandinavia and Norway?

Can the artistic perspectives shed light on and add to a more nuanced outlook on the integration debate in Norway?  

By looking at the transcultural development in our society from an aesthetic perspective - can we open for new knowledge and a more nuanced dialogue in the areas of women’s rights, integration, cultural identity and the relevance of art in social change?

How does activist art obtain political impact when playing by the rules of the media? What are the medial means by which art activism becomes an agent for political change? Which communicative strategies may be applied to strengthen the force of a political message?

The First Supper Symposium is delighted to invite you to the second part of its symposium series on art activism, investigating the relationship between contemporary art practices and politics. In this edition, Eirik Myrhaug, Center for Political Beauty, The Yes Men, Ekaterina Sharova, Deep Dish TV, Shannon Jackson, Media Impact Moscow, and moderator Trine Krigsvoll Haagensen will engage and activate the audience in unfolding the means by which art activism may become an agent for change in a world of political and economic crisis.

Video from Prologue 2 is here.

We will explore the following questions:

How are political messages communicated within a space devoted to presenting art? What is the difference between presenting art with a political perspective in an art space, versus presenting it in a public space? When political art is presented in an exhibition space, is it transformed into a commodity, is it commercialized and thus rendered passive? What happens to the political message when it encounters the playing rules of the art market?

Video from the symposium here.