A day at Spike Island with Imran Perretta and Meriç Algün

Insight into the new exhibition at Spike Island gallery, Bristol:

Programme for this autumn:

I was very touched by Imran's film and Meriç's art work.

They both address the lack of understanding and empathy we all suffer from in the post-modern world, especially inside multicultural communities, often misunderstood, misrepresented, and disenfranchised on many levels.

Imran's film is built around a powerful text, inspired by his experience in a Bangladeshi family/neighbourhood in London. The visuals, presented on two screens creating a sort of dialogue between the images and the sound, are showing a series of Asian men isolated in different rooms of an empty school, being invaded by water while they speak to us...

Their words are literally transporting us beyond their body and situation, into their stuggling mind...

Imran Perretta

the destructors

'the destructors' is a solo exhibition and major new film commission by London-based artist Imran Perretta. Drawing on the artist’s own experience as a young man of Bangladeshi heritage, the film explores personal and collective experiences of marginalisation and oppression. Shot on location in Tower Hamlets, East London, it reconsiders the figure of alienated male youth, exploring the complexities of ‘coming of age’ for young Muslim men living in the UK.

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Meriç Algün

Day Craving Night

As for Meriç Algün's exhibition, the Turkish artist now based in Stockholm, Sweden, encapsulates visual representations of isolation, separation and alienation in human relationships, in our world becoming a little harsher every day.

Through an installation based on shelves, she has selected imaginary books going by telling titles such as 'Half/Other Half', 'Distance', 'Bitterweet Wound' and of course 'Day Craving Night'.

Another central piece is a old European map, figuring the world before the continents drifted and after... Titled, in French, 'Avant la Séparation' and 'Après la Séparation' (ie. Before and after the separation...).

The other pieces are inspired by maritime travels, echoing the history of the trans-Atlantic exploration launched from the 1400s.

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The gallery wrote: 

For her solo exhibition at Spike Island, Stockholm-based artist Meriç Algün presents a series of new and recent works that explore the precarious nature of love in a world obsessed with individualism, consumption and borders. Bringing together a wide range of resources from the Carboniferous period to today, the exhibition takes the form of a spatial collage that draws analogies between love, nature and culture.

Working with a variety of media, from video and text to installation, Algün often works in context-specific ways and according to set parameters, using ordering systems to suggest that meaning is never as fixed as we might think. Bureaucratic language features prominently in early works such as The Concise Book of Visa Application Forms (2009), for example, in which the artist bound all the visa application forms in the world, rendering them unintelligible while illustrating the lengthy processes that different citizens have to go through before they are permitted to travel. Facing such questions as ‘Are you and your partner living in a genuine and stable relationship?’ Algün asks how these normative systems and restrictions are influencing what is possible for us to say and do.

Meriç also wanted to curate these very famous commercials from the 1990s - for the Calvin Klein's fragrance 'Eternity' - to underline the dominant pattern of representation of the Europo-centric ideal of domestic bliss and love... Misrepresenting so many of the other inhabitants of the megalopolises of our Western world. An ideal for most impossible to achieve in a daily life filled with alienation, stress, isolation, distance, misunderstanding and ego battles... But the myth sells well.

One of the inspirations for this exhibition was a book, 'Eros The Bittersweet', about the Greek god of Love...:

“Eros is an issue of boundaries. He exists because certain boundaries do. In the interval between reach and grasp, between glance and counterglance, between ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you too,’ the absent presence of desire comes alive.”– ANNE CARSON’S, EROS THE BITTERSWEET (1983)

MERIÇ ALGÜN

Meriç Algün (b. 1983, Istanbul) is an artist based in Stockholm. She studied at the Sabanci University, Istanbul, and later at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. Algün has held many solo exhibitions in Europe and has participated in numerous international biennials such as SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms, 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015); Between the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Will, 5th Thessaloniki Biennial (2015); All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale (2015); Leaving to Return, 12th Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (2014); You Imagine What You Desire, 19th Sydney Biennial (2014).

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Spike Island
133 Cumberland Road
Bristol BS1 6UX
United Kingdom

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Bristol, city of art!
More soon.

News from Beyond Borders: Beyond the Channel!

The Festival I volunteered for this summer is coming to England!!

In about a month, through a partnership with a university in the North:

“Beyond Borders” Festival 

travels to York University (UK)!

 27 - 31 October 2019

Following an invitation received from York University  (Honorary Academic institution at the 4th edition of the Festival ),  “Beyond Borders” will travel to York Universitybetween 27-31 October 2019,  where it will screen some of its award-winning films. 

More specifically, the films that will be shown are:

 “The Silence of Others” |Almudena Carracedo & Robert Bahar, Spain, USA 2018, 96’

BEST HISTORY DOCUMENTARY “Beyond Borders” 2019

The elder María Martín lost her mother when she was murdered by the Franko regime and she is one the 100.000 Spaniards in mass graves. Now, one whole lifetime later, María and many other Spaniards are seeking justice for Franco's victims, but Spanish law stands in their way. Directors Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar with producer Pedro Almodóvar try to give voice to the demands of their fellow citizens.

Trailer: 

“Children Below Deck” | Bettina Henkel, Austria, 2018, 90’

BEST SOCIO-POLITICAL DOCUMENTARY “Beyond Borders” 2019

The film tells the story of three generations: the (late) grandmother, the father and the daughter, who directs. The central theme is the transfer of the traumatic experience from generation to generation and illustrates the apparent influence that the historical changes of north-east Europe have had on the protagonist's psyche.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/331385394

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Screening place: Holbeck Cinema, York University – Film, Television and Interactive Media Department

Screening time: 18:30 

Free Entrance

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More information about the Festival :beyondborders.gr , info@beyondborders.gr

More information about the Hellenic History Foundation (IDISME):  www.idisme.gr, info@idisme.gr

Contact Number : +30 210 66 69 131 / 140

On Virtual Roads to Zimbabwe

My first review for the art website thisistomorrow, on the exhibition of Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai-Violet Hwami at Gasworks, London

http://thisistomorrow.info/…/kudzanai-violet-hwami-15952km-…

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: (15,952km) via Trans-Sahara Hwy N1

Gasworks

19 September - 15 December 2019

Review by Melissa Chemam

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami’s first show in London is a glorious exploration of her Zimbabwean roots and ideals. Her exhibition at Gasworks, titled ‘(15,952km) via Trans-Sahara Hwy N1’, is the first institutional solo exhibition by the young artist, born in 1993 in Zimbabwe. Hwami left Zimbabwe aged nine because of the country’s significant political upheavals and is now based in London. 

The brightness of the colours used in the artist’s portraits of everyday Zimbabwean life is striking. Working with oil on canvas, she has created for this series a collection of scenes ranging from a medicine man picking the plants he needs to treat patients, to children playing in a courtyard, parents holding their baby, people in mourning and elegantly dressed women getting ready for a meeting among others. In half of her work exhibited here Hwami has used maps as background patterns, locating different geographical landmarks within the works. 

The large-scale canvases are built up through a process resembling collage though they are made of oil. In the second room, smaller canvases are exhibited, representing animals and totems, wooden masks and statues, as well as children and family scenes. These use more collage techniques, red backgrounds and photographic patterns. 

Visibly inspired by her own childhood memories and troubling images from her youth, as well as found images, Hwami has managed to make them her own. Each painting is thought of as an overlap of narratives, stories and representations of black bodies in many forms. In so doing, Hwami is addressing her ideas and ideals of her own family and her roots, as well as the legacies of colonialism. 

The artist explains that she is working from her personal experiences of “geographical dislocation and displacement”, a theme that is indeed deeply present in all these paintings. Displaying a few portraits of peaceful elderly figures, she also exhibits some still lives which highlight an explosion of intense colours: bright yellows, vibrant greens, warm browns, purple flowers and blue backgrounds. “Her intensely pigmented paintings combine visual fragments from a myriad of sources such as online images and family photographs, which collapse past and present into bold afro-futuristic visions,” notes the gallery’s text. The energy and mobility of her paintings are striking, and her research and forms question ideas around power politics and dis/placement. 

Hwami has sought a way reconnect with present-day Zimbabwe, and spent four weeks working at Dzimbanhete, an artist-run space close to Harare. She described the experience, however, as an estrangement, feeling “removed and othered” through this contemporary experience in her country of birth. 

The paintings exhibited at Gasworks are a result of this confrontation between the artist’s idealistic notions of belonging or rootedness and her actual experience travelling back to Zimbabwe in times of change. The exhibition is a unique, refreshing and powerful insight into the artist’s personal geo-political journey.

Published on 29 September 2019

A leaked climate change report written by the NASA/NOAA shows the US government is aware of global warming

I just published this on Public Pressure:

Wikileaks shares NASA report on climate change

 

by Melissa Chemam

A leaked draft of a climate change report written by the NASA/NOAA in the US in June 2017 reveals that global warming is real and it is linked to human economic activities, especially industrial production and carbon emission.

It was posted today on Wikileaks’s social media channels where you can download the full report. It also demonstrates that the US government has been informed of the causes and effect of global warming, recent weather disasters and climate change in general.

The conclusion is quite clear: US scientists have researched in details the reality of climate change and handed out their findings to the government.

Read the full leaked draft NASA/NOAA US climate change report

NASA/NOAA US report on Twitter

NASA/NOAA US Report on Facebook

photo: Extinction Rebellion in Melbourne by Julian Meehan

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Find out more about Wikileaks:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Cover photo: Extinction Rebellion in Melbourne by Julian Meehan

link to the story: https://www.publicpressure.org/wikileaks-shares-nasa-report-on-climate-change/?fbclid=IwAR2GDuB49_9zq2kL391X6wCIka-YflrI-UQfUDGxuy8IRZkt_zu8-dWjnZg

Reportage : L'Angleterre face à l'alcoolisme

Mon dernier reportage en Angleterre pour la DW (en français) : cette fois, sur la lutte contre l’alcoolisme l'alcoolisme - en 2e partie de l'émission "Vu d'Allemagne" 

Dans la seconde partie de ce magazine, reportage en Angletterre où la société civile combat les ravages de l'alcool.

L'Angleterre face à l'alcoolisme

Dans la deuxième partie du magazine, Vu d'Allemagne prend le chemin de l'Angleterre. Sur place une étude récente vient de montrer que la lutte contre l’alcoolisme est en perte de vitesse dans cette partie du pays, par rapport aux autres régions. En cause : des coupes budgétaires massives dans les services de désintoxication. Des chercheurs parlent d'une "épidémie nationale" ! Et tout cela au moment même où d’autres études confirment que les Britanniques boivent plus que les habitants des autres pays du monde. 

La société civile prend donc les devant. Une association a par exemple choisi de venir en aide aux enfants de personnes alcooliques, souvent traumatisés et qui risquent davantage de tomber dans l'alcool eux aussi. Melissa Chemam a rencontré bénévoles et professionnels.

 https://www.dw.com/fr/armes-cigarettes-menstruations-le-bundesrat-allemand-sintéresse-aux-sujets-du-quotidien-en-angleterre-lalcoolisme-épidémie-nationale/av-50567989 

'Inertia Creeps' in DC

Massive Attack in Washington DC yesterday: 

'Inertia Creeps', sounds like a good summary of our current politics!!

Climate Week is upon us

Climate Week is upon us. Listen to Greta Thunberg, George Monbiot, Naomi Klein and Extinction Rebellion at this very key moment of our struggle to protect our world’s ecosystems. 

By Melissa Chemam

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This week sees the opening of the Climate Week in New York City, taking place from September 23 to 29. Run in coordination with the United Nations and the City of New York, by The Climate Group – an international non-profit focused on accelerating climate action, this Climate Week comes after a couple of days of protests held by school strikers all over the world. 

Ahead of the launching day of the protests, 16 year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and British journalist and climate change expert teamed up to release this explanatory video, titled ‘Use Natural Climate Solutions To Protect Nature’, published by the activist group formed in the UK a year ago, Extinction Rebellion.

Use Natural Climate Solutions To Protect Nature:

“Right now, we are ignoring this natural climate solutions”, Greta says. “We spend 1000 times more on global fossil fuel subsidies than on natural based solutions. This is your money, it is your taxes, and your savings.”

However, a large amount research indicates that living ecosystems like forests, mangroves, swamps and sea-beds can pull enormous quantities of carbon from the air and store them safely. Simply. Estimates have found that protecting these natural systems could provide more than a third of the emissions reductions needed to keep to global heating below 1.5 degrees Celsius while also enhancing the resilience of people and nature across the world to climate change.

Despite this obvious knowledge, natural climate solutions only receive around 2% of the funding spent on climate change mitigation globally, and too few people have heard about it. 

This short, independent film (produced by Gripping Films Ltd., an independent London-based science and nature film company that specializes in telling positive stories to change the world) “was made to make nature a part of the climate conservation,” added Extinction Rebellion. 

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This is an important week for climate protesters and for all of us.

Timely, last week saw the release of a keenly crucial book: Naomi Klein’s new essay, titled On Fire. 

According to her publishers, “On Fire gathers for the first time more than a decade of her impassioned writing from the frontline of climate breakdown, and pairs it with new material on the staggeringly high stakes of what we choose to do next.”

And the journalist/activist also released a video, aimed at the president of the United States of America, addressing his will to commit to plastic production and meat consumption:

What’s in a (Trump) Straw?

For more than twenty years, Naomi Klein’s work has chronicled the exploitation of people and the planet and demands for justice. On Fire is supposed to capture the “burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the energy of a rising political movement demanding change now.” At a time where the largest wild forests on our planet are literally “on fire” indeed. 

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Extinction Rebellion is to launch a new set of protest from 7 October 2019, worldwide. In the meantime, they produced a series of other films to help us all grasp the serious impacts of global warming and careless use of fossil fuels. One, 

To close the Climate Week, than band Massive Attack will give an benefit DJ set on the 28th of September in NYC for Extinction Rebellion (details at the https://www.websterhall.com/event/382747-webster-hall-new-york-tickets). 

The band has been supporting the Extinction Rebellion movement since its beginning a year ago, giving a DJ set in London in April, the same day Greta Thunberg came to talk to activists in Marble Arch, Central London. They also soundtrack this important film on the role of citizens’ assemblies on climate and ecological justice, directed by ex-Reuters reporter Patrick Chalmers, with his All Hands On production:

The Deliberate Rebellion | Extinction Rebellion

The music for the film provided by Massive Attack is an exclusive remix of their track ‘Hymn of The Big Wheel’, from their first album Blue Lines, a strong take on the urgent need to care about environmental issues, written as early as 1991.

This is an important week. Share, learn, join us. 

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Melissa Chemam is a journalist, broadcaster and author, who has worked for the likes of the BBC World Service, CBC, France 24, Radio France Internationale, as well as many magazines, and for the filmmaker Raoul Peck, on post-colonial issues. Since 2003, she has been based in Prague, Paris, Miami, London, Nairobi, Bangui, and Bristol, travelling into more than 40 countries, and reporting on human rights, Europe-Africa relations and refugee rights. Her first book, Massive Attack – Out of the Comfort Zone, retells the story of the artists who came out of the city of Bristol, England, known for their rebellious spirit.

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I wrote this this morning for the website Public Pressure. The available text is online here:

https://www.publicpressure.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-greta-and-the-climate-week/

You have stolen (our) dreams and (our) childhood

Turning point!!

These words almost made me cry.

Most of my life, I've know this economic system was wrong for us, for life, for the planet, and I've been mostly met with rejection and people commenting on how much of a left-winger idealist I was.

All these years, unheard.

Luckily, this child is young enough, white enough, middle-class enough, wealthy enough to have stopped her life and get heard.

And thought I deeply regret that no world leader has listen to activists or scientists or powerful journalist like Naomi Klein I'm grateful for Greta.

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More on this soon... Such an important day. Hopefully, change is gonna come!

Greta Thunberg to world leaders: 
'How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood' 

'You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,' climate activist Greta Thunberg has told world leaders at the 2019 UN climate action summit in New York.

In an emotionally charged speech, she accused them of ignoring the science behind the climate crisis, saying: 'We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about it money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth - how dare you?'

UN secretary general hails 'turning point' in climate crisis fight.

(One of) My New Place(s): BIMM Bristol

My new place - from next Monday!
Honoured to plunge into this new adventure...

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Why Music Journalism? | BIMM

ALL ABOUT MUSIC JOURNALISM COURSES AT BIMM

KEY FACTS:

• Degree course
• Industry-leading tutors
• Well-balanced classes — a mix of theory and practical 
• Excellent internships and opportunities
• Elite masterclasses
• Access to BIMM Connect an exclusive networking service

Successful Music Journalists are made at BIMM and our three-year degree produces some of the best Music Writers in the modern music industry today. 

A BIMM degree is designed to bring out the best in our students. We’ll teach you business skills to land your dream job and our tutors will give you the knowledge and drive to become a world-quality Music Journalist.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM YOUR BIMM JOURNALISM COURSE

During your BIMM journey, you’ll be supported by a team of talented tutors who have years of experience and the inside know-how to help you crack the industry. 

LECTURES TO PREPARE YOU FOR A CAREER IN MUSIC

You’ll be taught the fundamentals of journalism and will be chasing down your own stories and scoring interviews with the hottest bands. You’ll also collaborate with your peers and harness BIMM’s cutting-edge facilities to sharpen your writing skills and business acumen. During the course, you will learn:

• Music and Digital Media
• Music Business
• Journalism in Context
• Artist Development and PR
• Engaging with Industry Contacts
• Global Communication
• Professional Development

Aside from your core classes, you’ll also be exploring potential career pathways through research and your Professional Project; as well as, learning about the vital business skills that drive the music industry.

Why Choose Music Journalism at BIMM

BIMM, The British and Irish Modern Music Institute, has colleges in eight cities where music matters most – London, Berlin, Dublin, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Hamburg and Brighton – and is proud to be the largest and leading provider of contemporary music education in the UK, Ireland and Europe.

WHO WILL BE TEACHING YOU AT BIMM

Studying at BIMM means that you’ll learn from a variety of sources. From our experienced and accomplished tutors to our exciting masterclasses that allow you to get up and close to some of the biggest names in music journalism. 

TUTORS

BIMM has produced some of the most successful names in Music Journalism and some of these industry icons will be teaching you how to follow in their footsteps.

MASTERCLASSES

BIMM students get special access to our famous Masterclasses. During these talks, you’ll meet some of the biggest names in Music Journalism, learn from them and get answers to all your crucial questions.

STUDENT SUCCESS STORIES

We’re proud that so many BIMM students have become successful in the music industry and professionals such as Jade Foster, The Kooks, Marina and the Diamonds, Jamie Skinner, Jules Pestano and James Bay have all walked BIMM’s halls. Go to the BIMM success stories page to find out more.

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Come and see us: https://www.bimm.ac.uk/bristol/

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STAPLES: BRISTOL with Danny Nedelko

Bristol is a city with an unquestionably rich music and cultural heritage. We caught up with Heavy Lungs frontman, IDLES homie and all round great bloke Danny Nedelko, to get his five 'STAPLES' of Bristol's music scene.

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And to finish, my piece on The Exchange for The Bristol Cable: 

https://thebristolcable.org/2018/12/fat-paul-and-the-the-exchanges-rebirth-as-bristols-first-community-owned-venue/

Fat Paul and the Exchange’s rebirth as Bristol’s first community owned venue

For the past decade, he has been one of the key “behind-the-scene” players in Bristol’s music scene, and now building a new era at The Exchange.

Melissa Chemam7th December, 2018

In the familiar surroundings of Cafe Kino ‘Fat Paul’ Horlick and I meet to discuss his part in saving The Exchange, by turning it into Bristol’s first ever community owned music venue.

The ‘DIY’ club on Old Market is not the only music venue currently under threat in Bristol. On the way from the Bearpit, I pass Lakota and Blue Mountain on Stokes Croft; the former has announced it will be closing in the next few years, the latter the Cable revealed has been bought by developers of student accommodation who are registered in the tax haven of Luxembourg.

Keep going and you get to the Canteen – one of the few survivors following the saga over the future of Hamilton House. Just like Westmoreland House, whose demolition began on November 21st, the whole of Stokes Croft is undergoing a complete transformation. For better or worse, depending on your perspective.

“When I was living here, the area was still a nightmare, marred with poverty, drug dealing, noise, insecurity,” says Paul, who first moved to the area 33 years ago, in a building facing Café Kino. “It has changed… and is continuously changing.”

With change comes opportunity, too. The team behind the Exchange, who used to own the Croft here in Stokes Croft have a solution that might inspire others in the fight to defend nightlife.

In October, they launched a campaign to become a Community Benefit Society, a set up where everyone gets one share in the enterprise regardless of whether they put in £250 or £25,000. In this way all shareholders equally own the society and can have a say in how it’s run.

This is similar in many ways to the Bristol Cable’s model, whose members contribute a minimum of £1 a month to own a part of the co-op and steer its direction.

“I cannot claim to own anything of the Exchange now,” says Paul

So why did the Exchange team decide to take this route? “We had experienced some difficulties with the council, in every way,” laments Paul. “I was working with Matt Otridge and Pete, and we were literally working all the time for free! We couldn’t afford to give ourselves any wages; we started running the venue out of passion only. We opened the Exchange six years ago in 2012, but it was never easy. But as we also needed the help of other people, we were aware of the fact that it was unfair for them…”

So something needed to change. Raising money, not from venture capitalists, but gig-goers and locals was the solution they came upon.

Bristol’s first community owned venue

By the time the community share offer ended on 31 October the 400 shareholders, mainly locals and fans of the venue, including a generous donation from the Fleece’s owner Chris Sharp, had raised an investment of £300,000. The new arrangement means that in January 2019, the Exchange will become Bristol’s first community owned venue.

The funds will allow them to make significant changes to the venue. Just as important to their future success will be a new ethos, or as the team declared after the completion of the campaign “the enthusiasm and ideas that our new co-owners will bring”.

Since 2012, the venue has been open almost every night, for gigs or charity events. But now the 400-something group will be able to bring in new ideas for events and musicians to perform. From January 2019, the leading team will launch improvement work,and a rebuilding of the stage, but want to keep it organic in the spirit of their newly formed co-op.

For the love of Bristol music

Music fan and drummer, Fat Paul is also known for his talent as a DJ. His sets are remembered for their lists of pagan folk music, from Tibetan monks to ritual themes, crossed with punk music.

Paul has also launched independent labels to give new artists a platform and free them from the regular commercial pressures.

The most successful has been Invada, created with Geoff Barrow, founding member of Portishead. Invada released all the albums for Dope and Barrow’s own band, BEAK> which he launched with Billy Fuller and Matt Williams in 2008. Paul is completely uncomfortable with the success. Invada is a label that is now “too big and selling too much”, he says.

To produce even more underground music, he launched the label Environmental Studies here in Bristol, which “doesn’t have to sell”, giving the artists no boundaries to their creativity. Documentary filmmaker Katie Bauer, who directed a film on Paul Horlick this year (named Dead Man’s Money), released her album Post via Environmental Studies.

2019 is going to be a busy year for Fat Paul, and the new owners of the Exchange too, as they struggle to keep up the good work in trying times.

“I cannot claim to own anything of the Exchange now,” says Paul, who still works seven days a week to run the venue. “We now vote all the important decisions together, of course not every detail every day or even every week, and we’re putting into place a new team of managers. We want the Exchange to continue as it is, really.”