13.11.2014 / 7:00 p.m.
Malmö Konsthall. Malmö, Sweden.
Lecture – Talk
Curated by Diana Baldon, in collaboration with The Danish National School of Performing Arts, Copenhagen, supported by Iaspis (the Swedish Arts Grants Committee). Participation of Institutet is supported by Inkonst, Malmö and The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm.
THE ALIEN WITHIN
A living laboratory of Western society
Taking inspiration from Schlingensief’s experimental ideas, The Alien Within morphs into an open-ended site of research. Intermittently throughout the duration of the project, talks, screenings, live concerts, and performances are held by Swedish and international artists such as, among others, Tania Bruguera, The Errorists (Hilary Koob-Sassen and Andreas Köhler), Jeuno JE Kim and Ewa Einhorn, the independent theatre group Institutet, as well as renowned scholars like filmmaker-theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha and sociologist Saskia Sassen. Their contributions seek to arouse debate around subjects such as the elaboration of a future for cosmopolitanism, the ability of fear to generate images and reshape the mechanisms of media and society, the timeless debate on the cross-over between art and politics.
The think tank proposes a laboratory in which socio-political issues, cultural traditions, and artistic methodologies resonate with and over-paint one another. These are analyzed through the lens of Malmö’s specific urban setting where almost one-third of its citizens is born abroad-a trend currently on the rise-and planning strategies have built away a decaying post-industrial past in the hopes of attracting knowledge-based industries. These have left unsolved issues related to the city’s history of immigration and ethnic segregation, now at the center of intense public debate. The Alien Within intends to address how every person is an active agent in creating the world we inhabit together. It does so by reflecting on forward-thinking models of contemporary Western society, while giving audiences the opportunity to take responsibility for the world as it is and celebrating the cosmopolitan fabric that makes up the Konsthall’s own urban reality.