Hannah Arendt Center presents:
Courage To Be: Lecture and Dinner Series, with Keith Haring Fellow in Art and Activism, Jeanne van Heeswijk
Monday, April 27, 2015
Kline, Faculty Dining Room
6:00 pm
This event occurred on:
Mon. April 27, 6 pm
The Courage To Be Lecture and Dinner series brings students, scholars and experts in diverse fields together to attend to the question of the foundation of moral and spiritual courage in an age when the traditional religious grounds of such courage are said to be weak. These lectures are coordinated with the curricular initiative for students enrolled in the course, “The Practice of Courage.”
Jeanne van Heeswijk is a visual artist who facilitates the creation of dynamic and diversified public spaces in order to “radicalize the local”. Van Heeswijk embeds herself as an active citizen in communities, often working for years at a time. These long-scale projects, which have occurred in many different countries, transcend the traditional boundaries of art in duration, space and media and questions art’s autonomy by combining performative actions, meetings, discussions, seminars and other forms of organizing and pedagogy. Inspired by a particular current event, cultural context or intractable social problem, she dynamically involves neighbors and community members in the planning and realization of a given project. As an “urban curator”, van Heeswijk’s work often unravels invisible legislation, governmental codes and social institutions, in order to enable communities to take control over their own futures. Noted projects include Hotel New York P.S. 1 in New York (September 1998 to August 1999); De Strip (The Strip) in Westwijk, Vlaardingen (May 2002 - May 2004); Het Blauwe Huis (The Blue House) in Amsterdam (May 2005 - December 2009); and 2Up 2Down/Homebaked in Liverpool (November 2011 - present); Freehouse, Radicalizing the Local in Rotterdam (September 2008- present).
Topic: The current economic crisis as well as the shifting of geopolitical boundaries and socio-cultural demographics, as a result of global urbanization, has generated numerous local zones of conflict. Many neighborhoods have become sites of contestation, into which different conditions of power are inscribed, where people are increasingly becoming disinvested and excluded from their own environment. There is a serious disconnection between ordinary people and their government. Public life/ The public domain is but for a small part oriented by the physical environment, it is made through confrontation of people, cultures and ideas. We have to question how we re-engage and witness the invisible vectors of power that shape the territory, reorganize systems of urban development and challenge the political and economic frameworks it produces? We have to make this arena of tension visible and to become participants in the process of visualizing the dynamics, complexity and diversity of the city we live in. We need to be become actors in our own surroundings {risking our subjectivity) , able to act up, active citizens, who dare to research, debate, and face up to confrontation and address one another as co-producers of the city. Test and imaged alliances between politics and art, and base them in practices that can establish narratives for a democratic, post-national inclusive society.
Monday, April 27th
Location: Kline Commons, Faculty Dining Room
R.s.v.p. Required - Invitation-only
Seating is Limited
The Courage To Be Lecture and Dinner series brings students, scholars and experts in diverse fields together to attend to the question of the foundation of moral and spiritual courage in an age when the traditional religious grounds of such courage are said to be weak. These lectures are coordinated with the curricular initiative for students enrolled in the course, “The Practice of Courage.”
Jeanne van Heeswijk is a visual artist who facilitates the creation of dynamic and diversified public spaces in order to “radicalize the local”. Van Heeswijk embeds herself as an active citizen in communities, often working for years at a time. These long-scale projects, which have occurred in many different countries, transcend the traditional boundaries of art in duration, space and media and questions art’s autonomy by combining performative actions, meetings, discussions, seminars and other forms of organizing and pedagogy. Inspired by a particular current event, cultural context or intractable social problem, she dynamically involves neighbors and community members in the planning and realization of a given project. As an “urban curator”, van Heeswijk’s work often unravels invisible legislation, governmental codes and social institutions, in order to enable communities to take control over their own futures. Noted projects include Hotel New York P.S. 1 in New York (September 1998 to August 1999); De Strip (The Strip) in Westwijk, Vlaardingen (May 2002 - May 2004); Het Blauwe Huis (The Blue House) in Amsterdam (May 2005 - December 2009); and 2Up 2Down/Homebaked in Liverpool (November 2011 - present); Freehouse, Radicalizing the Local in Rotterdam (September 2008- present).
Topic: The current economic crisis as well as the shifting of geopolitical boundaries and socio-cultural demographics, as a result of global urbanization, has generated numerous local zones of conflict. Many neighborhoods have become sites of contestation, into which different conditions of power are inscribed, where people are increasingly becoming disinvested and excluded from their own environment. There is a serious disconnection between ordinary people and their government. Public life/ The public domain is but for a small part oriented by the physical environment, it is made through confrontation of people, cultures and ideas. We have to question how we re-engage and witness the invisible vectors of power that shape the territory, reorganize systems of urban development and challenge the political and economic frameworks it produces? We have to make this arena of tension visible and to become participants in the process of visualizing the dynamics, complexity and diversity of the city we live in. We need to be become actors in our own surroundings {risking our subjectivity) , able to act up, active citizens, who dare to research, debate, and face up to confrontation and address one another as co-producers of the city. Test and imaged alliances between politics and art, and base them in practices that can establish narratives for a democratic, post-national inclusive society.
Monday, April 27th
Location: Kline Commons, Faculty Dining Room
R.s.v.p. Required - Invitation-only
Seating is Limited