Fokus för mitt arbete är ett konstant görande av plats. Plats för dialog, konflikt, maktanalys, kunskapsutbyten, pedagogik – samtal och aktivitet för förändring. Jag har tagit den plats jag har behövt för att göra min vardag som konstnär inte bara meningsfull, men betydelsefull, för andra än mig själv. Jag har antagit rollen som curator, förening och universitet, skribent, politiker och aktivist, performer, tänkare och görare, lärare, diskussionspartner och agitator, aldrig diktator, det skulle vara alldeles för ensamt. Jag har varit del av en rad samarbeten; Sedan 2005 del av institutionsälskande föreningen JA!. 2006 – 2011, alternativet Malmö Fria Kvinnouniversitet (MFK) tillsammans med Lisa Nyberg. 2009 samarbetade jag med Jeuno Kim kring en serie performance föreläsningar på Malmö Konsthall. 2009-2010 startade och drev Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner i New York tillsammans med Malin Arnell. 2005-2006 var jag del av Produktionsenheten.
Just nu:
Malmö Fria Kvinnouniversitet MFK intar Konsthall C genom projektet Insisting to be part of this moment/movement (övertygade om vår storhet), 1 april – 29 maj 2011. MFK har också precis släppt boken Do the Right Thing – en handbok från MFK.
Tillsammans med min amerikanska kollega Tia-Simone Gardner under söker jag den svarta medborgarrättsrörelsens utveckling i USA och UK. Walking back, talking back and an investigation in 4 parts; One is a basic mapping of the origin and organization of the movements in the US and the UK. Secondly, were where the women? We know that the term intersectionality grew out of the practical situation for black feminists of the 60ties and 70ties; the black power movement didn’t want to acknowledge that them being women meant dealing with another type of oppression then being black, and the white hegemonic feminist movement didn’t want to acknowledge that it meant something that they were black and women, the situation led to the forming of the black feminist movement. Where are we at today and what can we learn from this? Thirdly we want to look and compare the different developments between the US and the UK to the present day where (to simplify things) the UK movement moved in to academia and developed Cultural Studies whereas in the US the focus was on community building. bell hooks says: “When our lived experience of theorizing is fundamentally linked to processes of self-recovery, of collective liberation, no gap exists between theory and practice.” As we understand it was the founding goal of both groups to bridge this gap, so why this split? What influences do post-colonial histories, labor- and educational political programs and immigrant policies have on their different developments? Because each site has unique histories of oppression, it is interesting to look closer at the following resistance and possibilities for social struggles; the UK and its colonized people, the US and its enslaved. The fourth aspect is therefore to look at the pedagogical aspects of the movements. We know for example that it was obligatory for those who joined the Black Panther guerilla section to also read Franz Fanon and Karl Marx, but Fanon and Marx are not the easiest thinkers and writers so how did they organize that? How did they connect the writings with the doing? How were they able to make Fanon and Marx understandable and relatable, especially under the U.S. Empiricism and anti Communist politics?
Under hösten 2011 utvecklar jag en serie Performance Föreläsningar med konstnär Jeuno Kim.
2011 är jag också del av ett kollektivt romanprojekt Schackrummet, initierat av Sinziana Ravini.
