Danish Institute Athens and space52
Panel Discussion followed by a screening of Flotel Europa (2015) by Vladimir Tomic
September 30-31 2021
At space52
Panel Discussion
Thursday, September 30
Hours: 18:00 – 21:00
Speakers: Prof. Anne Ring, Dr. Sabine Dahl Nielsen, Dr. Sotirios Bahtsetzis
Moderator: Ariana Kalliga
Coordinator: Dionisis Christofilogiannis
Event Assistance and Design: Michallis Achilleos
The Danish Institute Athens and space52 invite you to the two-day panel discussion and film screening: “Post–Migration: Reframing Identity, Community and History”. Exploring post-migratory approaches in theory, film, and contemporary art, the program aims to initiate broader, interdisciplinary discussions about migration and its long-term effects, as well as the relationship between artistic and curatorial practices that are increasingly intertwined.
During the panel discussion, Prof. Anne Ring(Uni. Copenhagen) will present a documentary art project developed by Maja Nydal Eriksen with portraits of 250 citizens that statistically represent the 164,000 people who have been granted asylum in Denmark in the period 1956-2019. The portraits are supplemented by the participants’ own stories. Overall the project helps to focus on Denmark being a culturally complex country, where traditional notions of belonging and national identity are discussed and made the subject of negotiations. For more info, see the project’s new website developed in connection with its continuation as an educational platform for teaching school classes: https://www.
Dr. Sabine Dahl Nielsen (Uni. Copenhagen) will talk about a curatorial case, namely CAMP: Center for Art on Migration Politics (2013-2020). CAMP was a non-profit exhibition space dealing with topics such as migration, asylum, and integration. The exhibition space was based in the Trampoline House, a self-organized community center located in the highly diverse northwest district of Copenhagen. Until the financial impact of the corona crisis closed down the house, it served as a meeting place for refugees and asylum seekers. The project is unique in the sense that there are no other exhibition venues in Scandinavia that have worked consistently and persistently on migration policy issues in this way – and no one that does so within the framework of a bottom-up-driven community center. It is this combination of exhibition space and community center that helps to create interfaces between art audiences, refugees, asylum seekers, activists, etc., and which will be examined as a post-migrant public space. For more info see: http://campcph.org/
Dr. Sotirios Bahtsetzis’ talk will focus on “Universitas – A Case Study: How Artists learn from Migration” http://www.athensyn.com/universitas-exhibition1.php
Day 1: A series of talks followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with the three participating scholars: Prof. Anne Ring (University of Copenhagen), Dr. Sabine Dahl Nielsen (University of Copenhagen) and Dr. Sotirios Bahtsetzis (Curator, Co-director of AthenSYN). The speakers will relate to both the Danish and Greek contemporary art scenes, drawing upon what Naika Foroutan has called ‘postmigrant societies’ through a series of case studies in artistic and curatorial practice.
Day 2: Film screening of the coming-of-age film ‘Flotel Europa’ (2015) by artist Vladimir Tomic will be screened at 20:00 (70 min). Set in 1992 on a boat transporting refugees fleeing Bosnia and Herzegovina to Denmark, the film was selected for the Berlin Film Festival and has since won the award for best documentary at several film festivals. The film explores interrelated concepts of post-migration, narrative and belonging in a European context.
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