Imagination in (Times of) Crisis

On the conditions and limits of imagination in the face of current conflict situations
Thursday, December 5, 2024, 6:30 p.m.
PODIUM
 
with
Galit Eilat, Mohammad Salemy (zoom), Solmaz Shahbazi
Moderation: Iris Dressler
Language: English
Admission: free
Registration at: assistenz@wkv-stuttgart.de

The panel Imagination in (Times of) Crisis asks about the possibilities and limits of an open discourse in view of the numerous current areas of conflicts regarding the so-called “Middle East” and how these are dealt with in Germany. How can public discourse on these conflicts focus on negotiation instead of the non-negotiable? What forms and formats and what imagination is needed for this? And what contribution can the arts and the so-called humanities make to this, which, among other things, stand for equivocality, ambiguity and the power of imagination: in other words, for the power to think the seemingly impossible? Last but not least, we would like to discuss how state measures such as the Bundestag resolution “Never again is now: Protecting, preserving and strengthening Jewish life in Germany” (2024), relate to these potentials of the arts and sciences.
 
The “Never again is now” resolution once again calls for the IHRA working definition of antisemitism to be used as a benchmark for codes of conduct and, above all, for state measures in Germany. This is based on the assumption that the IHRA definition is unambiguous.
 
The legally non-binding resolution also calls for "closing legal loopholes and consistently exploiting repressive options" in the fight against anti-Semitism. At its core, it is about the possibility of sanctioning art and knowledge institutions that do not meet the IHRA definition by cutting public funding, as well as tightening asylum and residence law policies. According to the paper, the increase in anti-Semitism in Germany is due, among other things, to "immigration from the countries of North Africa and the Near and Middle East." Certain migrants and migrantized people, as well as artists and scientists, are marked as groups of people who are generally suspected of anti-Semitism: some because of their origin and religion, others, it seems, because they work in areas where freedom is held in high esteem – which are seen as the epitome of freedom.
 
But is this really about freedom or rather about the fact that the arts and sciences stand for ambiguity, for ambivalence and the potential to think about things and relationships differently, to imagine them differently? Is it the power of imagination that is considered potentially dangerous; a power that is inherent in art, science and migration – each in a particular way? The panel is conceived as the beginning of a longer engagement with the question of the conditions and possibilities of a specific language or discourse in view of the current seemingly insurmountable conflict situations. The starting point is the concept of imagination in the sense of an emancipatory political force, as described by Cornelius Castoriadis, among others, as the core of all social and political change. It is about the sense of possibility, of making the impossible conceivable. This presupposes that we negotiate things and relationships as fundamentally ambiguous, contradictory and open. Conversely, the question must be asked at what point imagination itself enters into crisis.

Galit Eilat
Galit Eilat (*1965 in Haifa, Israel) is an interdependent curator and writer. Since 2018 she is the director of Meduza Foundation. Her projects seek to develop conditions that enable collective encounters and experiences, underpinned by a critical view towards the status quo. Pivotal to her projects is the process of knowledge dissemination, which departs from the ethos that art is charged with the potential to ignite social change. Her current research trajectories are dealing with territorial dynamics of socio-ecological systems and sustainable development in extreme environments. In 2001, she founded the Israeli Center for Digital Art, where she served as director for ten years. In 2004, she co-founded Maarav, an online arts and culture magazine and in 2007, she co- founded the Mobile Archive. Together with Reem Fadda, Eyal Danon and Phil Misselwitz she initiated the traveling seminar series, Liminal Spaces, a platform for joint work, action, and dialogue between the Israeli and Palestinian art communities. She served as the first artistic director of the Akademie der Künste der Welt in Cologne. Among others she curated and co-curated projects such as VideoZone 4 – International Video Art Biennial in Tel Aviv, And Europe will be stunned — Yael Bartana in the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (with Sebastian Cichocki), the 32nd October Salon, Belgrade (with Alenka Gregoric) and 31st Sao Paulo Biennial (with Nuria Enguita Mayo, Pablo Lafuente, Charles Esche, Oren Sagiv and associate Curators – Benjamin Seroussi, Luiza Proença). International collaborations have included projects with gfzk | Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; National Gallery Kosovo; Kunsthaus Bregenz; MG + MSUM Moderna Galerija Ljubljana; SALT, Istanbul; Malmö Konstmuseum; Serralves Museum and more. In addition to her curatorial activities, she also engages in teaching and writing extensively about art and politics.

Mohammad Salemy
Mohammad Salemy (*1967 in Kermanshah, Iran) is a Canadian artist, curator and writer who currently lives in Berlin. His work moves between art and theory. He is co-founder of the New Centre For Research & Practice in Jersey City, a university that brings together art, humanities and natural sciences. In his writings, Salemy deals with media theory, the interfaces between humans, machines and the environment and a poetics of code. In 2016 he published the publication For Machine Use Only (&&& / The New Centre, 2016) with texts by writers such as Jason Adams / Kate Armstrong, Clint Burnham and Siwin Lo; Philosophers such as Elie Ayache, Benjamin Bratton, Diana Khamis, Matteo Pasquinelli and David Roden; theorists such as Alexander Galloway, Leo Goldsmith, Simón Isaza, Nicola Masciandaro, Rory Rowan and T'ai Smith; and artists such as Lou Cantor, Manuel Correa, Victoria Ivanova, Ed Keller and Benjamin Noys. His theoretical-philosophical essays have been published in books such as Reinventing Horizons and Politics of Study. He has participated in numerous panel discussions and lectures in galleries, museums and universities. The book he edited, Model is the Message: Incredible Machines Conference 2022 (&&&), will be published in 2023. Salemy's works are currently on display in the exhibition Sea and Fog (until January 26, 2025) at the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden.

Solmaz Shahbazi
Solmaz Shahbazi (*1971 in Tehran) studied architecture and design at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Stuttgart. Before she began to engage in film, she had mainly been working as an architect. Her work builds on the artist’s desire to anchor an aesthetic dialetic praxis in the social and political conditions of the present. Shahbazi uses the documentary format in both her videos and her photography as a tool to analyse different modes of imagery, expectations of the unknown and possible effects on perception. Her collection of images testify to the potentially fictitious nature of the photographic medium, providing a view as to how we filter images, formulate conceptions—and ultimately awakening us to the fallibility of preconception, the power of the photographic frame. She is a nominee for the Discovery Award at the Rencontres d’Arles 2010.

Iris Dressler
Iris Dressler (*1966 in Neuss) is the director of the Württembergischer Kunstverein together with Hans D. Christ