23.10.2020
Lectures/Events

October Talks: Double Lecture
Bassam El Baroni & Aziza Harmel

23 October 2020, 7pm

Bassam El Baroni
Curating the Diffused Site of the Political: Refugee Economies and the Public Sphere

The talk engages the topic of the European migrant crisis. It briefly maps out the various responses the expanded field of art has formulated towards the crisis and develops the concept of ‘refugee economies’ as a vehicle for understanding the diversity of sites and economies that make up an expanded public sphere in today’s post-migratory world. It looks at examples, from within the field, in which ‘refugee economies’ become visible.

Aziza Harmel
Three Movements & Crossing a Body of Water

“I grew up on the Mediterranean coast - today’s deadliest road for migrants. This talk reflects on water as a tomb and the different ways to cross it, analysed in three possible movements:

(1) Back and forth: This presumes a possibility of a return – not only related to the actual return of the body to the motherland but also to something eternal. It is also related to sea’s movements, and the return of matter, of the transformed body.
(2) Forth and never back: through this movement I talk about hope.
(3) Never back and never forth: here I explore places that are impossible to leave. I will reflect on the sea as knowledge, the desire to inhabit, to speak its language, and to become water.

Finally I will read a love letter from Jamila Ben Othman (former Tunisian Communist Party leader’s wife) asking Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space) to come visit her in Tunis.”

Bassam El Baroni is an Egypt-born curator, teacher, researcher and organiser. He is assistant professor in curating and mediating art at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Helsinki, and former lecturer at the Dutch Art Institute, ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem. Upcoming curatorial projects include Infrahauntologies at the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg and La Box ENSA, Bourges (spring 2021).

Aziza Harmel (*1985, Tunis) is a curator currently working in Kunsthalle Wien. She worked in Documenta 14, Steirischer Herbst 2018 and elsewhere. She co- curated Qayyem (2019), a curatorial research program which roamed between Alexandria, Amman and Tangier. She also co-curated the 12th edition of Bamako Encounters Photography Biennial (2020).

October Talks is supported by Stadt Salzburg and the Blaue Gans Art Hotel.