LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE. MORE INFORMATION ON SSIIMMIIAANN.ORG

In 2024, I was invited to curate the first events of Thinking Out Loud at Simian in Copenhagen. This series series of talks delves into critical themes spanning arts, philosophy, and social sciences. It aims to showcase diverse perspectives, promoting a collective exchange of ideas and dialogue.

Solidarity in the Arts, focuses on the intricate challenges associated with the ways cultural institutions engage in conversations, mediation and progression in times of crisis. It examines the extent and formats to which these institutions administer their agency amid complex questions and conditions. The presence of double standards, particularly in addressing colonial oppression, underscores the necessity to reassess collective discourse. This critical juncture has spurred an in-depth discussion about what tools cultural workers possess, and how institutions and spaces position themselves, especially when faced with censorship and financial limitations. This discussion also explores the potential for these institutions to adopt a more fluid, transgressive, and eclectic stance.

About the Guest Speakers:

Rasha Salti (b. 1969, Toronto, Canada) is an independent curator and freelance writer, based between Marseille and Beirut. In 2008, she co-founded the History of Arab Modernities in the Visual Arts Study Group with Kristine Khouri, a platform dedicated to researching the social history of art in the Arab world. Their ongoing project, Past Disquiet, evolved into a documentary and archival exhibition in 2015. This work has uncovered the histories of "museums in exile" and "museums in solidarity" worldwide, showcasing the vital support these institutions provided to artists and their significant contributions to the global anti-imperialist movement, particularly in regions such as Palestine, Nicaragua, Chile, and South Africa during the 1960s and 1980s. Salti's commitment to revealing and sharing these narratives has significantly enriched the dialogue at the intersection of art, politics, and collective activism. The exhibition Restless Past: Museums, Exile, and Solidarity is currently on view at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung (b. Australia) is a writer and cultural worker particularly interested in anarchist and dissident publication practices, utopian thresholds in language, and literary expressions of the revolutionary consciousness. He is the founding editor of Decolonial Hacker, an online publication which—through a web-browser extension—‘hacks’ the websites of cultural institutions, corporations, and nation states with texts informed by decolonial politics at large. In 2023, he was the Asymmetry Curatorial Fellow at Whitechapel Gallery, London, where he curated the exhibition Anna Mendelssohn: Speak, Poetess. Eugene has been a curator-in-residence at Delfina Foundation, and was previously part of the curatorial and public program teams at the Julia Stoschek Foundation and documenta fifteen, respectively. His writing has appeared in e-flux Criticism, Third Text, ArtReview, Griffith Review, and Art+Australia, among others. In 2021, he won the International Award for Art Criticism (IAAC). Eugene holds degrees in art history, gender studies, and law from the University of Sydney.

Samara Sallam (b. 1991, Damascus, Syria) is a Palestinian visual artist, journalist, and hypnotherapist. Through multi-layered narratives, Sallam investigates the social, cultural, and political intersections of language, biopolitics, psyche, and storytelling. On March 30, 2024, she co-organised the Kunstparade calling for solidarity of cultural workers and artists for the recognition of the Palestinian people. Sallam holds an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and BA from the Funen Art Academy. Furthermore, Sallam has studied visual arts at L’école Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Algeria and journalism at Damascus University in Syria.

Fafaya Mogensen (b. 1996, Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Copenhagen-based curator and writer specializing in musical performance, performance art, film, and video art. Her curatorial focus centers on new understandings of the relationships among art, institutions, and underrepresented subject positions. In 2021, she co-founded the nomadic curatorial platform Arrange the Ants, which aims to create space for BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic), femme, queer, and working-class individuals in the art world. She currently works as a curator and project manager for artistic research at Art Hub Copenhagen. Her writing has appeared in Kunstkritikk, Perioskop, and Provinciale11. She holds a BA in History of Art and an MFA in Curating from the University of Copenhagen and Goldsmiths, University of London.