11 Nov
A new poetic world possible
Round table organised with the members of the “Thought and Practice” Collective initiated by the Fondation René Seydoux together with other Mediterranean cultural actors (RAMI Platform, artists, Art video operators, social and political scientists…).
“Cultural Cooperation In The Time Of Mediterranean Revolutions”
A new poetic world possible
With the participation ofMajid Seddati (Festival de Casablanca), Marc Henine (Festival d’Alexandrie), Nisrine Boukhari (All Art Now, Damas), Marianne Strapatsakis (Festival de Corfou, Grèce), Rokhshad Nourdeh (artiste, Iran), Claudine Dussollier (projet RAMI, Transverscité), Giovanna Tanzarella et Elisabeth Grech (Fondation René Seydoux), Hadeel Nazmy (Université des Beaux arts, Alexandrie), Rania Stephan (réalisatrice, Liban), Héla Ammar (artiste, Tunis), Toni Mestrovic (Croatie), Marc Mercier (Instants Vidéo, Marseille)…
Instants Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques (Marseilles) have been working in collaboration with southern Mediterranean countries for several years. They have accompanied the birth of new art video festivals in Morocco (Casablanca, 1993), Palestine (Ramallah, Jerusalem, Gaza, 2009), Syria (Damascus, 2009) and Egypt (Alexandria, 2013). They regularly collaborate (screenings, exhibitions, conferences, workshops) with other countries such as Lebanon, Algeria …
In 2011, in Tunisia, Egypt and then almost in all Arab countries and very recently in Turkey, people took to the streets, got rid of their dictators to finally engage in a revolutionary process whose outcome is still unknown today. Artists play a significant role in this process, sometimes even risking their lives.
The Mediterranean is therefore the scene of profound social and political turmoil (economic crises, revolutions, wars…) that invites us to rethink our forms of international cooperation, especially artistic cooperation. We can no longer apprehend the world (which is the artists’ mission) like we used to before the “Arab Spring”.
Perhaps it is time to commit ourselves to a Mediterranean poetic revolution to support the needs for social and political changes claimed in the Arab countries and in southern Europe. The new art video festivals in the Arab world reveal the willingness to invent new languages, to interpret and transform today’s world. These new issues do not only concern the Mediterranean countries but the entire planet.
We should ask the question of the poet-philosopher Friendrich Hölderlin: “How can man dwell the world poetically?”
We do not want a world
where men can surround themselves with artworks
we neither want a society where everyone is a painter, poet or musician.
We want a world where everyone
perceives the world as an artist,
enjoys the sensitive
with a painter’s eye
with a musician’s ear
with a poet’s language.
The poetic revolution of our daily life
is only a way to make
Possible
Desirable
A revolution.
We will then be able to tell poetry
like Hamlet to his father’s spirit,
“Well said, old mole!”
until it will find the strength
to lift the earthly crust that separates her from the sun.
