(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[chronicle] 29. and 30. October, the Kosmokultur project will be arranged at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. The purpose is to create a meeting place for discussions with emphasis on the cross-border potential of art in higher art education, cultural similarities, identity, freedom of expression and human rights. There is an increased awareness that art and culture are the driving force for democracy, equality and interaction across ethnic or religious divisions, as well as its use in identity and nation building, which the Academy of Arts in Palestine (IAAP) is a concrete example of. The initiator of the creation of IAAP is visual artist Henrik Placht, who is also project manager for the Academy of Fine Arts at KHiO.
Cosmoculture consists of a seminar, an Artist Talk, an installation and an exhibition, and is a collaborative project between the Nobel Peace Center, the research project Cultural Complexity in the New Norway (CULCOM) and the Oslo Academy of the Arts (KHiO).
Hardcore vs softcore.
Traditionally, international politics has been dominated by an approach called hardcore, where military operations are a tool for resolving conflicts. Norway has a strong commitment to resolving conflicts by participating in peace processes around the world, which in international politics is known as softcore. This means that emphasis is placed on understanding the culture of others, as well as empathy or identification with the other. It is in this context that Norway goes by the name peace nation.
Visual artists have from the past been preoccupied with more existentialist issues, while again they are much more involved in cultural and social issues. An example is the conditions for individual identity in today's global society, the exile as a situation and the transit as a place between culture and languages, the unjust consequences of global politics and the relationship between resources, aesthetics and political power.
In some cases, the art moves out of the traditional form and view context. The gallery room and the inherited art disciplines are abandoned. Instead, the art becomes interdisciplinary and ubiquitous. In the opposite way, this involvement in the world takes place in the form of reality portrayals that are drawn into the gallery. These are like performances, installations, documentary-based photography and film that challenge the audience to decide on issues of social relevance. The art is willing to ask new and often unpleasant questions. It can therefore act as a corrective body to challenge general consensus.
Palestine.
In international diplomatic circles, IAAP goes for being a bridge builder project. The Academy of Art thus falls under the term soft-core, but the motivation for the creation is political. It is the dream of a Palestinian state that is the driving force, and the instrument used is at the same time identity and nation building.
The IAAP is located in Ramallah, a city with great symbolic value to the Palestinians. This is where the Palestinian elite started its intellectual awakening. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) has supported the Academy of Fine Arts with NOK XNUMX million over three years and is thus part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' strategy for Norway's cultural and sport cooperation with countries in the South. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also supported the project Cosmokultur, together with the Fritt Ord Foundation.
Hard-core versus soft-core are dichotomies and within international politics thus means to resolve conflicts, while the space between these two poles is creative. This is the space the project Cosmokultur wants to explore the potential for. Israeli author David Grossman writes in an article in the Aftenposten November 25, 2006: "Most people realize that Israel will be divided, that a Palestinian state will be created. Why do our political leaders continue to occupy the position of fundamentalism and not the majority '?
Research leader for CULCOM, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, says that with the Kosmo culture project we want to show how culture intervenes in politics, and not only when it is openly political. Art communicates in a different way than, for example, research and academic texts. Art has its own language, and at the same time it has a general human element. Therefore, art has a cross-border potential to change the world.
"Foreign" is changing.
This perspective is important for foreign policy. Foreign policy no longer means one state's relationship with another state, but the term is gaining an expanded content because the world has come so close to us. This means that art will become an increasingly important tool in foreign policy. The creative space between two approaches in international politics is popular, international and belongs to the majority. This social change must be taken into account by the political elite. If not, then the gap between the elite and the people will be too large, and in the worst case scenario, we will have a policy that is abstract and distant in reality. Wise politicians understand this paradigm shift!
On October 30, the exhibition Still on Vacation opens with three world-renowned Palestinian artists. The following artists are Emily Jacir with the artworks "Where We Come From", Khalil Rabah with "50 320 Names" and Sharif Waked's "Chic Point". Curators are the Palestinian Samar Martha and Henrik Placht. Emily Jacir shows a sensitive approach to the fate of the Palestinians as a stateless people. What for Israel was the "war of liberation" in 1948 that led to the establishment of the state, was for the Palestinians the great catastrophe – al-Nakba. Over the course of months, about 750.000 people were turned into refugees, displaced from their homes in towns and villages. And almost sixty years after al-Nakba, the refugees and their descendants are still living in exile. Most live in refugee camps around the Middle East, but many have also moved on to other parts of the world. They are a living expression of the Palestinian people, even though they are deprived of the right to decide their own destiny in their own country. Outside the Nobel Peace Center, the installation The Wall by the Norwegian artist Pål Vigeland has been set up, which is a copy of the one that separates Israel and the Palestinian territories.
There is no doubt that there is a revitalization of the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is not only an inflamed question in the Middle East, but also internationally. The Middle East Conference is headed this year by the United States and takes place in mid-November. Among the issues to be addressed are the Palestinian state formation, the borders of the new state, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the future of disputed East Jerusalem.
