“Destination Asia: Eastern Orientalism”
"Versions..."
exhibition
Soros Center for Contemporary Art - Almaty cordially invites you to attend the "Eastern Orientalism" conference on June 6-7, 2008 in the conference-hall of the House of Scien?tists of Kazakhstan.
The conference starts at 10:00 am, ending at 18:00 pm
Along with that on June 6, “Versions...” the exhibition of Central Asian contemporary artists will take place in ULAR, the gallery of modern art.
“Eastern Orientalism” Conference is the third part of the project “Destination Asia”, the main topic of which is the idea of a renaissance of the cultural links with South Asia which historically and geographically has been close to Central Asia. Nevertheless the Project continues to collaborate with European culture and sciences, including created by Edward Said “European Orientalism”.
In 2007 the Soros Center of Contemporary Art – Almaty organized two big exhibitions along in collaboration with their colleagues Sharmila Samant ( India ) and Quddus Myrza ( Pakistan ) for the project “Destination Asia”. They are the exhibitions “Non strict correspondence” (contemporary art of India and Pakistan ) in June in Almaty and “Flying over stereotypes” (contemporary art of Central Asia ) in December in Mumbai ( Bombay ).
The theme “Eastern Orientalism” takes on heightened importance in today's world. The new developing capitalism in Asian countries has given to their cultures a feeling of freedom and the possibility to escape being servants for the government as well a sense of being unprotected from the competitiveness of cultures; these developments have set the stage for Central Asia to enter in the “big” art world on equal conditions.
The conference is dedicated to the thirty years anniversary of publishing Edward Said's book after which East considered by the East and others not like a part of closed exotic world but the open part of the global art system.
The fourth stage of the project “Destination Asia” will be the publication of the book in the end of 2008 including the conference papers in two languages – Russian and English, and the visual and the informative materials of two exhibitions.
The speakers on the conference are Quddus Mirza, the artist and critique from Pakistan; theorists of contemporary art from India Amrita Gupta-Singh, Nancy Adajania and Ranjit Hoskote (co-curator of upcoming Bienalle in Gwangju, Korea); researchers Enrico Mascelloni (Italy) and Sarvinoz Hojieva (Tajikistan); Keiko Sei (Japan) – the professor in the biggest Art and Media Center in Europe (ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany); researchers of contemporary art Aleksandr Djumayev from Uzbekistan and Gamal Bokonbayev from Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan is represented by theorists of contemporary art Kamilla Lee, Bayan Barmankulova and Guldana Safarova, the philosopher Zhannat Baimukhametov, and the architect and culture theorist Almas Ordabayev.
For additional information please contact by the phone numbers:
+ 7 (727) 277 53 43, 269 90 18
The House of Scientists' address:
Almaty, #29 Kurmangazy st.,
Ular gallery'address:
Almaty, #29 Kurmangazy st., 3 rd floor.
Phone: + 7 (727) 272 47 83.
Project's sponsors:
 Design Academy (Kazakhstan) |
