Creative Resistance: conflict, occupation and contemporary artistic expression in the Middle East - Thursday 1 August 2013

Date: Thursday 1 August, 2013 
Time: 7.00pm 
Venue: Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Victorian College of the Arts (Southbank campus), 234 St Kilda Road, Melbourne

The complexity and volatility of spatial relations in the Middle East have been brought into sharp relief in recent times. Delineation of space in these highly contested territories – whether physical or systemic – has been known to play a key part in manifestations of injustice, where authorities have sought to limit freedoms, control movement and enact human rights abuses. Yet, conversely, spatial practices can be used to challenge these same mechanisms of oppression.

The 2011 protests in Syria, part of the wider Arab Spring movement, initially contributed to a renewed faith in the power civic protest in the public realm to enact positive, long term political change. Widely perceived as heralding a new age of citizen-led liberation and empowerment, such demonstrations of resistance have captivated the Western world and inspired similar actions elsewhere. Sadly though, the initial post-revolt euphoria has given way to months of seemingly intractable warfare and displacement of citizens. Nearby, the ongoing annexation of Palestinian territories and corresponding infringement of human rights at the hands of Israeli authorities continues in a more covert manner, receiving relatively little media attention. Both regions face dramatically different conditions and challenges, yet share a common history of acts of resistance, in defiance of human rights abuses.

Join us for a critical look at creative resistance across disciplinary and territorial borders, with Palestinian artist Sary Zananiri; journalist/activist Firas Massouh; architecture student Nora Massouh and Rachel Busbridge, Research Fellow at the Centre for Dialogue, La Trobe University.

Refreshments provided/gold coin donations welcome!

Image: “Il giardino occupato”, by Palestinian artist Basjir Makhoul. Installation in the Palestinian pavilion, Venice Biennale, July 2013

Reclaiming poisoned land: Reconstruction and renewal in post-war Lebanon - 2 August 2007

Public lecture
Thursday 2 August, 7.00 pm
RMIT Building 50, Orr St, off Victoria St

Speakers:

Dr Hadia Haikal Mukhtar, Medical Association for the Prevention of War + Mounir Kiwan, Australian Lebanese Youth Association

Following the war in July 2006, Lebanon faced a humanitarian crisis, with more than 1000 people killed, more than 4000 injured and around 1 million internally displaced. This was compounded by an environmental disaster caused by an oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea, the destruction of infrastructure and dwellings and the littering of South Lebanon with cluster bombs.

Estimated at over a million in total, these bombs represent a serious and largely invisible threat to the lives and livelihoods of civilians struggling to rebuild. The use of such weapons ensures that conflict leaves a long term stain on regions devastated by war, well after cease-fires have been called.

Dr. Hadia Mukhtar, a member of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, visited the country in December last year as part of a humanitarian delegation organised by Australians for Lebanon. Dr Mukhtar will be joined by Mounir Kiwan, president of the Australian Lebanese Youth Association, to discuss their first-hand insights into the work of NGO’s aiding the relief effort, and the ongoing campaign to outlaw the manufacture and use of cluster bombs.

Lecture to be followed by discussion and refreshments. Entry by gold coin donation.

The Baghdad Museum is empty

THE BAGHAD MUSEUM IS EMPTY

The Baghdad Museum is empty yet
We are told, in this war
The Angel of Death deals
A delicate hand:
In the guns’ sights,
Fifty faces stamped on a stack
Of poker cards
Fifty kilo smart bombs
Invisible, silent, first punched
On the lap-tops …in the war room of Quatar
Beamed from Pine Gap to outer space
Ground invisible B52’s deadly cargo rains over
Specified ten meters square,
Curtesy, Baghdad’s street directory
To kill the Evil One (who is it today?) reported
Dining in a fashionable restaurant

A smart war, a skilled hand, a sharp knife,
for Iraq, surgery,
Removal of malignant tissue, whilst…
The patient lives.

On the streets of Baghdad,
A message from beyond the clouds,
First harbingers of peace -
White bed sheets of Baghdad’s City hospital
Drying in the sun
Turn chocolate black caked in dry blood.

Hapless faces of the mauled stare through the CBN lens
Into my living room, for
In this war, the Angel of Death comes with finesse

Only collateral damage and friendly fire harm the innocent
And THAT is reasonable

We can rest content, in oblivion
in the darkness,
Sleep peacefully on our beds.


S Ivanovich, May 2003