TASK 4 - A Written Dialogue (In 7 Chapters)

With our partners from BITA we made a curious observation. While during our stays in Bangladesh sometimes we sought silence and loneliness, the possibility of being alone, our friends from BITA at the end of their stay confessed that they had sometimes felt lonely during their stay, even though we had tried our best to welcome them. We noticed that there was also a difference in how the institutions embodied their role as hosts. While the members of BITA very naturally took us along to family events (be it weddings, funerals or birthdays) and made us part of their daily lives in the city, we realised that members of the German institutions had somehow a more strict division between their “private” and “professional” lives.

In a traditional Yoruba background that I am from, as a host you must make people feel at home. I recently had a guest collaborator from Berlin and it’s her first time in Africa, so I said to myself this must not look boring to her apart from our creative research process and project. We need to engage the city together, teaching her our language, music and lifestyle, take her to party’s, introduce her to many spaces and create some interesting conversations, there are many ways to host. After her six weeks of stay in Lagos, she said to me, Femi, I wish I can relocate to Lagos.

I know as an artist we are always conscious of the time for work, research, creative process and so on. That is a good idea, but we should always create time to enjoy the new space and new place. Making the guest explore the lifestyle and environment is key. I also experienced a little boring moments in Berlin. After work you go to your apartment, read some book, sleep, eat, sleep - after one week I was like “I can’t continue this way”. I had to move out myself, meet new friends, go to places and engage new spaces, historical places like Alexander Platz etc. - I found this more interesting and educative.

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As a host you must be smart enough in identifying the right space to direct your guest to. Apart from the project or collaboration process and creations, from experience, you should always create an unforgettable memory for each other, this goes a long way.

I think it depends on the background and ideology. I believe life is more interesting than being strict in your private and professional lives. Normally you might want to have your private time to think or focus on some other task or research [...] but when you are hosting people, you should give them options of what they can do in a new space you invited them too.

Whoever can make/break their own conventions is definitely going to be willing to connect and hence more hostile and welcoming. Most of the time family and friends are the only support we do have and hence we’re always ready to be host and guest for each other. The social security concept for citizens in these countries is like an alien concept. We do survive because of these warm gestures of sharing time, space, etc. with each other.

Resonating with Maxi’s experience of being welcomed by artists from Bangladesh (what could be the reason?) I would love to add here that it could be the language. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh before partition were ruled by the British and the language English remained here as a colonial hangover till today.

For the last few months I have been thinking and reflecting upon this so-called ‘language’ a lot and have many questions like can only a language make someone colonial or postcolonial? If I speak English, will I be recognised as a colonial person? And if I use my native language then will I be a post colonial?

I was criticised by many artist friends for speaking English in my first solo performance which I chose reasonably as most people in South India can’t understand the language that is being spoken in my region. So I opted for the so-called common language ‘English’. And I myself didn’t see any problem in that, as I was communicating with people around in English only on an everyday basis. And I used spoken English in the performance instead of speaking proper English as my need and intention was to communicate what I was trying to say through performance.

Most of my friends are from urban metro cities and they have no problem with English as such but in performing a performer must opt to speak his/her so called mother tongue as it makes a performer strong. [...] I don’t believe in mother tongue as every language is learnt, to me mother tongue means no language, just touch and sounds that is primitive before evolution of any language and it is universal, on the name of so called mother tongue we all are supposed to speak defined languages, according to me it must be then also called as father tongue. Is it language that makes a performer strong or intense? Performing Language is not just words but a combination of so many other things.

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But yes when a foreign artist comes to India, Bangladesh or Pakistan, it doesn’t matter which language they perform. As we are accustomed to respect their language and English as well. There will never be a question especially in contemporary performing fields of urban institutions, performing places that artists perform in English. Even if it’s a colonial hangover, it helps the artists here to grow and learn, especially those who are curious and make/break their own notions and conventions (while interacting with other state’s) . And also it helps foreign artists to connect, perform and hence definitely helps opening up more possibilities to them.

I was surprised to know from a few artist friends from Europe that it is difficult for us to perform when we were looking for the possibilities of performing the same piece, which will be evolved after one month residency at Frankfurt, at few other places in Europe, and one reason was the language (not many people understand English).

Reading Savita’s text, I started thinking about the use of English in Argentina for performances. The predominant language - Spanish - is already a colonizer’s tongue; but still most people would find it incredibly weird to do a performance here in English, after a hardcore history of translating rock music during dictadorships to Spanish -eventhough there have been bands performing in English, somewhat underground - and I would even say pride in the language (?). Most of my performances have been in English, due to the two years living in Europe, because for me it was important, that what I was saying was somewhat understood. Sometimes Spanglish as well. I really enjoy the idea of mother tongue as not a language but a tongue, touch and so on.

It is really interesting to me, to read what you wrote about the languages used in performances and different (historical) connotations coming along with that. In Berlin, where I live, and where I go more often to places of the “Freie Szene” I have the feeling that English and German exist quite equally. But maybe somebody who speaks no German would disagree with this impression. The problem for me with language is that each joice brings exclusion apart. German excludes many international artists living here in Berlin and possibily other non-German speaking visitors (but in my perception visitors of the “Freie Szene” theaters mostly are (international or local) artists themselves anyway) and English excludes the non-English speaking parts of the audience. So I think it is important that the theatres work on translation, be it with surtitles, or be it, like Sophiensaele, a theatre in Berlin, that comes to my mind in this context, does, also with audiodescriptions of things happening on stage for blind people.

For the context I come from, language is fraught with complications that are not easily negotiable. Within the context of my own country the English language can be enabling for certain people or in certain contexts. It is also, as Savita points out, often a common language for people from different regions of the country who do not speak each other’s language.

I have been to international trainings in the "first world" where British students have remarked on how fluently I spoke "their" language, unabashedly unaware of the colonial context of how and why I spoke English at all. Sometimes I ache for more space and understanding of each other's context in intercultural spaces. I suppose this space can only be created when we allow ourselves to listen, learn and make room for change in how we do things.

In our research this spring we came across a written exchange between the Mexican film and theatre artist Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez and the French choreographer Jérôme Bel. Whilst Bel took the decision to stop flying in professional as well as private contexts due to global warming and made this public on different occasions, Rodríguez reacted to Bel's attempt with some critical questions deriving from a postcolonial perspective. This was followed by an answer by Bel. You can read their statements, when you open the following links:

OPEN LETTER Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez/Jérôme Bel
https://e-tcetera.be/open-letter-to-jerome-bel/

AN ANSWER by Jérôme Bel to Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez (if you scroll down):
http://www.tea-tron.com/txalotoloza/blog/2021/02/25/de-lazaro-rodriguez-a-jerome-bel-carta-abierta/

How do you perceive these questions about mobility and global warming, locality and international exchange, future (that Bel highlights) and the past and present (that Rodríguez reminds of) ? Where do they meet with experiences you made?

As is evident from this very interesting exchange, the idea of "artists of the future" and not contemporary is relevant to those who have certain privileges available to them. To impose one common solution that works for all of us, is completely ignoring the post- as well as neo-colonial context. The assumption that one size fits all is simply not a workable or just solution. And we cannot all be expected to restrict ourselves to local artistic interactions. There is virtue to local communities, as it is to international community building, which helps us share our context and artistic practices.

Out of the same perspective on mobility accompanying artistic work, that takes place internationally, it is interesting to question the different visa procedures for people with different citizenship accompanying international exchanges. During our exchanges with the Bangladesh Insitute of Theatre Arts in Chittagoing we faced quite intense visa procedures in both directions, though often it is especially the so called Global North that requires strong proves for visa for people applying from the so called Global South. There is a statement by the Kenyan writer and performance artist Ogutu Muraya, who decided to give up his status out of solidarity with other artists facing the restrictional visa procedures of Europe. In our research this spring we read his statement, which you can read about here:

OPEN LETTER by Ogutu Muraya
https://www.spielart.org/en/program/all/on-thin-ice

What does the procedure of getting a visa to different places include and entail for you?

I don’t remember any experience of difficulty in getting visa as mostly I have gone through either institutional procedure or then directly was applying for tourist visa on an individual basis but yes, one thing I always felt is that it is unnecessarily complicated, it can be actually a very simple procedure, but that I feel in each and everything - including the educational, health centres, banks etc. - that the unnecessarily complicated procedures make one physically and mentally exhausted.

Argentina has a three month tourist thing as long as you have a return ticket, so that is not necessarily the problem. At least for me, most issues are surrounding securing flights, paying health insurance that is in USD or EUR, due to the exchange rate and the taxes in Argentina for people using those divisas. I agree with the person before (Savita?) in how certain, not only visa applications but applications as a whole for scholarships and so on, are unnecessarily complicated so people don’t even think of applying -this is something I hear a lot of great Argentinian friends and artists. During my student’s visa application for Switzerland I did encounter some microaggression by the people working at the Swiss embassy in Argentina in terms of telling me I would not get it and that I was lying the first time I went to ask questions, though I would have to agree the bureaucrats in the Argentinean system were not a delight either. I find it funny that a lot of my reactions are coming from such an emotional place, the stress of going to do paperwork is a lot - I cannot remember what I was asked, but it was some days of doing ques, hurrying from one building to another. It is intensified if the people in charge of those things are actively trying to be unhelpful or even hurtful. This does not mean that structural issues can be compensated through niceness, it does make me think about the formalities of bureaucracy, paperwork and so on, the buildings they take place in. In essence the material aspect of it, that contributes to this hostility.

Concerning the experience of getting a visa, this is so very much challenging in Lagos till date, it is really crazy. After many travel histories on a passport, on my recents visa process to Germany in april I was denied visa ( why - I might run away from the German territory ) after I was denied the visa, I did an appeal then I was granted the visa. This looks really disappointing for me, after I have been given a visa so many times to travel and I have all of the documents required, I think they like to play on people's emotions by denying visas and making the visa issues hard for artists from the African continent.

Post pandemic it has become more difficult to get Visa especially since Europe seems to be dealing with a backlog of visa applications that couldn’t go through because of the pandemic, but also the changing dynamic of what was the European Union is perhaps affecting this. We had difficulty getting a visa appointment initially. Though an email to the German consulate by Jenny fast-tracked our process. Which made me wonder about those who did not have institutional backing to be able to help with the process.

In our first Zoom meeting with Savita, Manjari and Femi we started to talk about theatre conventions that we had experienced in our local and international theatre practice.

We asked ourselves what are the conventions we know or were shaped by when we started to see and later make theatre, dance and performing arts? What is our position towards these conventions? Are conventions narrowing possible forms or can we use the term in a positive way if we reinvent conventions with our own practice? How are we confronted with aesthetic hegemonies, as not transparent but influental rules on what "good" or "interesting" art is? Where do we encounter such hegemonies if so? What is the relationship between non-professional and professional practices? How are they valued?

I think few questions are reflected in my last response, like thinking about the conventions of language. Definitely conventions are narrowing possible forms like I said earlier, thinking of just speaking your regional/national languages or speaking english language. Both can be narrowing if one follows the conventions of so-called language, but the moment one understands this convention then can break away from the conventions of speaking whatever language, it will not then be defined by only on the behalf of any spoken languages.

And then similar things apply to the conventions thought like good or bad art (superior/inferior language), again conventions behind professional and non professional practices, actually professional as a word is valued more as we are conditioned to hear it all the time “be professional!be professional” but if one tries to understand what is professional, it doesn’t necessarily mean that one has formally studied, rather it is about being committed, dedicated, disciplined with passion, open and flexible, inclusive, inventive, clarity etc and it has nothing to do with if one has studied formally or informally. So in art/life practices we have to come out of the conventions of these binary conventions especially. Either this or that. Maybe both or neither, or maybe somewhere in between a truer sense appears.

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I enjoy Savita’s idea of professionalism and what I interpret as ‘work-around’ conventions, considering as well that we are standing in long histories of different theatre, dance, performance ‘currents’ as well as video games, cinema conventions, that intertwine to create new conventions. I am quite interested in how things come to be, the structure behind them and sometimes working with conventions makes them more visible, while other times, especially if one is unaware that conventions are just that, they can become quite suffocating. I wonder what specifically means convention in this question. I do think that conventions can, if applied by institutions mostly, become an hegemonizing force- this happens with themes, even disciplines sometimes. It might be then important to harness spaces of long -in terms of time- experimentations, like laboratories of practices.

In my opinion conventions of performance can be interesting ways to approach practice and training. Many path-breaking performance practices have emerged from a study of conventions. It gives a structure, especially to artists in training or wanting to be rooted to form. The study of conventions, however, cannot be done, in my opinion, without a critical perspective towards how they are executed. For instance the study of a lot of traditional dance styles in India is accompanied by the oppressive practice of the Guru-Shishya parampara (engl.: teacher-student tradition), wherein the teacher is put at a pedestal, has absolute power in training spaces which often percolates into the personal lives of students. The question is how to understand what is cultural appropriation in the context of convention, what are ways that ensure psychic and physical safety within conventions and what are the ways to break and challenge conventions. I find conventions useful as long as they are porous and are able to accommodate for a fluidity that allows for people of varied abilities to be able to follow the conventions. When the conventional is held up to be the only possibility of expression or merely mimicking the message of those in power, it becomes limiting and oppressive.

During our work with the Bengali Theatre Institute BITA occurred a number of challenges that lead back to the institutional and structural frames, within which our encounters took place. In our HTA postgraduate research this spring we tried to reflect critically on these and pose the following questions: What challenges did we face, that can be lead back to institutional, funding or other structural aspects in general and especially within a Global South/Global North - and thereby postcolonial - context?

It often occurs to me that German (European?) funds and institutions follow certain trends in their choice of international partners. For example artists from countries that face a current political crisis, which is rather a lot reported about here, or who work with aesthetics that are close to the already known and currently liked, but still bring up something considered as ‘new’ or ‘different’. The Russian artist Ada Mukhína did an interesting piece in this context in 2019:
https://www.deutschestheater.de/en/programme/whats-on/premieres/how-to-sell-yourself-to-the-west/5439/

I lived two years in Switzerland during my MA with a Scholarship. I did find [...] a lot of expectations of being able to ‘teach’ certain aspects of my country that I don't have the responsibility or even the right knowledge to impart. There was also this lingering feeling of … paternalism? maybe, as if one should be grateful not for the opportunity - I mean, I am as I am from a lot of opportunities that I decided to engage with from the get go- as if one was charity. In Argentina, or at least at the University I studied before, it is quite common to speak up if a professor or even a director is saying something you don’t agree with, so for me it was quite shocking to see other students, and even teachers who also felt uncomfortable not speaking up. [...] Even if there was a lot of courses around notions of decoloniality, queer studies and so on, this theoretical knowledge didn’t apply to praxis. I think this contributed to the initial defensiveness or skepticism I had regarding this project here as well, and I understand the difficulties in being able to engage without emotionally taxing others- or understanding how/why/what to share without emotionally taxing yourself.

The question we must ask of Institutions is why they must take on roles of 'thought police' (George Orwell)? The very role of art in society is to critique the normative, to keep checking those in power. For freelance artists, institutions are perhaps one of only a few sources of funding, thus the need for institutions to be free of interference by the government is extremely important. Often institutions, in an outward display to be progressive, critical and relevant publish curatorial notes that are in direct contradiction to the very way in which artists from the countries hailed from who might be the very subject of their exhibition/conference/festival. There is a need for us to include critical thinking, not just in our grant proposals/concept notes but in the process of how we imagine the art making process itself.

May the institution be a house at the second floor, that ignores the absence of the floor below, and yet remains suspended, up in the air.

One might say that the art institution is that which often hosts fiction within its frame and border; the question that I would like to raise is more: what is the possibility for the institution not to host fiction, but rather to be fictional? (Daniel Blanga-Gubbay)

In our research we were inspired by Daniel Blanga-Gubbay’s text on fictional institutions. You can read it, when you open the following link:
https://www.kunsten.be/en/now-in-the-arts/the-mo%CC%88bius-strip-on-fictional-institutions/

His proposal to use the notion of fiction in order to imagine an institution that does not yet exist provided an opportunity to imagine the institution that could perfectly host a project like ours with BITA or a residency like yours at LAB…So this, as a final step, is an invitation to imagine an institution What does it need and what does it provide? What does it look like, what spaces does it have and what infrastructure? What imaginaries does it exercise? What could this imaginary institution as a formal one learn from the practices and knowledge of informal institutions?

The institution: What does it need and what does it provide?

The institution needs to be looking into the future, carrying with it the wisdom of the ancestors. The Artistic institution must provide a safe space for the artist to be able to express themselves, space to reflect upon their practice. It must play the role of the protector of the Artist, the “non-essential” workers who must do the essential work of imagining and hoping for a better future for humanity.

What does it look like, what spaces does it have and what infrastructure? Institutional spaces must be inclusive in a real way that does not look at inclusion as merely something as an inclusion in a diversity quota, paying lip service to certain regulations is not enough. The infrastructure must include spaces that are accessible for people of all abilities. Often institutions get associated with a building thus a fixed structure. Institutions must find ways of being perpetitic, of allowing for itself to have limbs that can float/ fly and re-integrate/ continue to exist away from it. Another very important role that I see for the institution is to share their privilege of human and non- human infrastructure with those that do not directly come under the purview of beneficiaries of the institution. Thus art institutes could interact and benefit from the learnings from individuals indulging in non-artistic pursuits.

What imaginaries does it exercise? An ideal institution Exercises imaginaries that are able to be porous and borderless. - Are queer in their imagination- fluid and dynamic, constantly reviewing their constitution. - Engaging in the act of listening as an act of care-giving and holding space for individuals who may be voicing difference or need of - Strictly steering clear of being spokespersons of the government/ those in power. - Giving room to voices of dissent. - Allowing for reviews and changes in their policies, constitution and mandates when needed. - Not stagnating in terms of who the decision making bodies within the institutions are.

What could this imaginary institution as a formal one learn from the practices and knowledge of informal institutions?

The formal could learn from the informal: the ability to organize around tinier resources pools. non-hierarchical systems / bodies that contribute to the running of the institution. interactions with the local environment

For some reason, after reading this part I stayed thinking about what is legal, and what is illegal, and how it is possible to do certain things informally since they are not inside of the legality of things. I assume a lot of institutions do take into consideration what they can do on the legal side, and what legal forms, bureaucratic forms can be used in favour of the institutions and the artists in them. During the call, we talked about this notion of how we are all following specific pulsations and interests, in a myriad of forms. Perhaps those are the imaginaries, in the sense of an institution that actively tries to bring forth the specificities of each individual/collective artist, without trying to homogenise its curatorialship let’s say. Maybe it is not only a question of space, but also of the time required by artists? the balance between collective sharing, intensities, relaxation, alone-ness.

For the first time when I read this document and reached this chapter, I was not able to relate and understand in depth and I just left it. In our last zoom meeting while having a dialogue, listening to each other on all the chapters including fictional institutions, I could relate more. What is an institution? To me an institution is already a great mix of reality and fiction. In other words it is a system. Everything is organised in a system, whether it is defined or undefined. And here I feel that because an institution is a system and each system is an evolutionary process. It needs to be open, flexible, accommodating, adopting etc. whatever the basic principles apply on life applies on each and everything.

Imagination or fiction is mostly triggered from what we say as reality. According to me, imagination means that one sees something in reality that raises some curiosity, questions, and one feels to make the current scenario (situation as part of a system, it is time, space and context specific) better, find possibilities and at the end the reality returns, only in terms of an institutional structure.

It helps me in understanding the things in interconnections and even without literally seeing, touching, tasting, hearing, reading etc I can still experience something totally unknown. And I would love to articulate it as being visionary. To me a visionary is not only who is able to see when everything is smooth, ideal or perfect, rather a visionary is who can see when there is chaos, dust, darkness etc.

But to conclude I would say, every existing institution was somebody’s imagination or fiction to either propagate the existing system or to change and make that better. There is a very strong connection between the reality, fiction and system (formal/informal institutions). The only difference is the orientation.

I was born in 1981, in the last few years I could experience a cold, mechanical, restrictive behaviour at different places: structures like airports, big malls - and even in the behaviour of artists from big cities. I would say that in the last few years I could see a drastic change in people's behaviour. A specific kind of space structure, and the imposed pattern of behaviour actually changes the reality.

Twenty years before, people may have not be wearing branded clothes, not occupying themselves all the time with something, may not have been looking so called civilised and sophisticated, may not have talked with each other without dropping a broad smile on their faces even for a second, but they were able to see each other that time as their reality was not hijacked or the market was not able to invent the thousands of devices to steal one’s own time and space which it has done now.