03.04.13
If you were around The New School campus over the weekend, you may have started seeing works of art, galleries and studio spaces crossed with these police-tape style demarkations, and wondered, “What’s going on here?” The Fine Arts department, The New School Collection and the SJDC are proud to be participating in a global protest and international cultural awareness campaign happening today, March 4th, led by colleagues at the Art, Culture and Technology program at MIT. This “Culture Shutdown” is a reaction to the acute crisis affecting major cultural institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. On October 4, 2012, after 124 years of existence, the country’s National Museum (Zemaljski Muzej) closed down due to the government’s failure to secure legal status and adequate funding. Your solidarity is needed to make a statement to the government in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and to support the country’s artists and art institutions!
Please take the time today to read the placards next to the “protested” works and spaces around campus, and check out the site here to find out more about this incredible show of soliderity happening at 219 cultural institutions all around the world!
The Objectives of the “Culture Shutdown”
- To MAP STATUS QUO / PROVIDE INFORMATION to both local and global audience about the critical condition of cultural institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina
- To RAISE AWARENESS about the structural, political, and economic problems behind the problem of cultural shutdown, showing how the ethnic conflict continues to take place in post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina within the cultural sphere
- To EXPRESS PROTEST against the retardation caused by stubborn ethnopolitics
- To provide RESOURCES / TOOLS that can be useful for cultural producers (in Bosnia-Herzegovina and worldwide) by learning about/from relevant case studies in different places
- To CONNECT PEOPLE (cultural producers, policy makers, activists, etc.) respecting their diverse religious/ethnic/national affiliations and based on their common aspiration for a peaceful and constructive coexistence, and thus encourage creation of a healthier civil society in the region
- To INSPIRE NEW VISIONS for the future of coexistence in Bosnia-Herzegovina though pro-active visionary proposals and projects
