From Thinking to Seeing to Acting.
Our society is in a state of upheaval: The current wave of protests for justice continues across the United States and has spread to Europe and beyond. How do we interpret and confront issues such as systemic racism, political corruption, and anti-Semitism? How do we navigate our modern media landscape to listen to and learn from these issues? Explore these questions through the theories of Hannah Arendt and Vilem Flusser, two Jewish philosophers who fled Nazi rule in Europe in the 30’s and 40’s and emigrated to the US and Brazil, respectively.
Join us on June 8th at “Unsettling the Apparatus”, an online digital salon where we will begin by reflecting on the present state of our country--and its people--and the dangers that this represents. We will then move on to discuss the ways in which media, specifically visual media and imagery, can modify and distort our essential public dialog around political justice, social equity, and other issues. We will attempt this analysis through the lenses of understanding provided by Hannah Arendt and Vilém Flusser.
The discussion will bring together Arendt scholar Samantha Rose Hill and Flusser scholar Andreas Ströhl, who will present some of the key ideas of each of these theorists relevant to the topics above. We will then hear from and see work by artist-theorists Anne Beffel and Brazilian born Simone Osthoff, to learn something about how artists respond to their individual political moments. Finally, we will round out our discussion with Hasaan Kirkland, an independent art curator, who will help us to pull these ideas together from a curator’s perspective.
“Unsettling the Apparatus” seeks to build a foundation and develop concepts for an upcoming art call. Selected works will be exhibited later this fall at Goethe Pop Up Seattle in a show generously supported by 4Culture.
Salon Participants:
Anne Beffel, Professor, Visual and Performing Arts, Michigan Technical University
Samantha Rose Hill, Assistant Director of the Hannah Arendt Center; Visiting Professor of Political Studies, Bard College
Hasaan Kirkland, Independent Curator, Artist, Professor of Fine Art, Seattle Central College and South Seattle College
Simone Osthoff, Professor, Art and Critical Studies, Penn State University
Andreas Ströhl, Director Goethe-Institut Washington D.C.; Regional Director Goethe-Institut North America
Moderated by
Ken Winnick, Photographer, Artist and Cultural Entrepreneur
Registration
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