Center for Human Rights and the Arts

Mirt Sost Shi Amit / Harvest: 3,000 Years (Part of Imaging Land, Labor, and Infrastructure)
2022-04-05 17:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
CHRA will be screening Mirt Sost Shi Amit / Harvest: 3,000 Years (1976) by Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima on Tuesday, April 5th, 5:30pm EDT at Weis Cinema, Bard College. The event is free and open to the public. The film screening will be followed by post-screening discussions.

Mirt Sost Shi Amit / Harvest: 3,000 Years is Part three of public film screening series Imaging Land, Labor, and Infrastructure organized by CHRA’s 2021-22 Fellow Nadine Fattaleh. Hosted in the Hudson Valley and online, the series considers the politics and poetics of visibility in the Global South and the complex ways in which moving images of agricultural labor, large-scale dams, and rural dispossession constitute a fragmentary audio-visual archive conversant with the circulation of ideas around Third Cinema.
A network of Ciné-Clubs in Syria, convened by Omar Amiralay (1944-2011) and other veteran filmmakers, were unique spaces for the circulation of politicized images in the age of celluloid. They brought together artists, intellectuals, and enthusiasts interested in watching and debating the relationship between cinema and radical politics. In this light, the program will feature the film by Haile Gerima, which follows Omar Amiralay’s shorts (March 18), screened at Upstate Films at Rhinebeck, NY, and contemporaneous works by Ateyyat El Abnoudy (1939-2018) (April 5), screened online. The series develops a conversation about innovative aesthetics from the moment of the 1970s that mediate narratives of marginalized and exploited communities. The film program seeks to recreate an intimate space for dialogue around the transformative possibilities of cinema, then and now, in global struggles around land, labor and infrastructure. The series will culminate in a roundtable discussion later in the Spring. All events are free and open to the public.

Layli Long Soldier: My Art is a Being: Building a Relationship to Art through Agreement, Ethics, and Pleasure
2022-04-01 12:00 - 13:30
By understanding our art as a being with whom we create a relationship, Layli Long Soldier explores the ways in which we can make commitments and agreements with our writing and art; uphold expectations and enact reciprocity, as one would do with a relative; and nourish our relationship through pleasure, playfulness, or enjoyment. These agreements with our art, in turn, lay a foundation of ethics that can protect us from capitalism and the dangers of becoming human art-machines! This will primarily be an artist talk in which Long Soldier will share images/videos of projects that have helped her build a practice based on relationship and reciprocity rather than productivity, alone.

Films by Ateyyat El Abnoudy (Part of Imaging Land, Labor, and Infrastructure)
2022-03-29 12:00 - 14:00
CHRA will be screening four short films by Egyptian filmmaker Ateyyat El Abnoudy on Tuesday, March 29th, 12pm EDT on Zoom (link). The event is free and open to the public. Four films will be shown on Zoom and followed by post-screening discussion with audiovisual archivist Yasmin Desouki (Chicago Film Archives, formerly Cimatheque – Alternative Film Centre in Cairo, Egypt).

حصان الطين Mud House (1970), 12 min
أغنية توحة الحزينة Sad Song of Touha (1972), 12 min
الساندوتش The Sandwich (1975), 12 min
بحار العطش Seas of Thirst (1981), 44 min

Films by Ateyyat El Abnoudy are part of Imaging Land, Labor, and Infrastructure, a series of public film screenings organized by CHRA’s 2021-22 Fellow Nadine Fattaleh. Hosted in the Hudson Valley and online, the series considers the politics and poetics of visibility in the Global South and the complex ways in which moving images of agricultural labor, large-scale dams, and rural dispossession constitute a fragmentary audio-visual archive conversant with the circulation of ideas around Third Cinema.

A network of Ciné-Clubs in Syria, convened by Omar Amiralay (1944-2011) and other veteran filmmakers, were unique spaces for the circulation of politicized images in the age of celluloid. They brought together artists, intellectuals, and enthusiasts interested in watching and debating the relationship between cinema and radical politics. In this light, the program will feature short films by Ateyyat El Abnoudy, which follows Omar Amiralay’s shorts (March 18), and will be followed by a film by Haile Gerima (1946-), screened at Bard College on April 5. The series develops a conversation about innovative aesthetics from the moment of the 1970s that mediate narratives of marginalized and exploited communities. The film program seeks to recreate an intimate space for dialogue around the transformative possibilities of cinema, then and now, in global struggles around land, labor and infrastructure. The series will culminate in a roundtable discussion later in the Spring. All events are free and open to the public.

Films by Omar Amiralay (Part of Imaging Land, Labor, and Infrastructure)
2022-03-17 19:45 - 21:30
CHRA will be screening three short films by Syrian filmmaker Omar Amiralay on Thursday, March 17th, 7:45pm EDT at Upstate Films, Rhinebeck NY. The event is free and open to the public. Reservations can be made through this link. The films will be followed by post-screening discussions:

محاولة عن سد الفرات Film-Essay on the Euphrates Dam (1970), 13 min
الدجاج The Chickens (1977), 41 min
طوفان في بلاد البعث A Flood in Ba‘ath Country (2003), 49 min

This screening of films by Omar Amiralay are part of Imaging Land, Labor, and Infrastructure, a series of public film screenings organized by CHRA’s 2021-22 Fellow Nadine Fattaleh. Hosted in the Hudson Valley and online, the series considers the politics and poetics of visibility in the Global South and the complex ways in which moving images of agricultural labor, large-scale dams, and rural dispossession constitute a fragmentary audio-visual archive conversant with the circulation of ideas around Third Cinema.
A network of Ciné-Clubs in Syria, convened by Omar Amiralay (1944-2011) and other veteran filmmakers, were unique spaces for the circulation of politicized images in the age of celluloid. They brought together artists, intellectuals, and enthusiasts interested in watching and debating the relationship between cinema and radical politics. In this light, the program will first feature Omar Amiralay’s shorts (March 18), followed by contemporaneous works by Ateyyat El Abnoudy (1939-2018), screened online on March 29th, and film by Haile Gerima (1946-), screened at Bard College on April 5. The series develops a conversation about innovative aesthetics from the moment of the 1970s that mediate narratives of marginalized and exploited communities. The film program seeks to recreate an intimate space for dialogue around the transformative possibilities of cinema, then and now, in global struggles around land, labor and infrastructure. The series will culminate in a roundtable discussion later in the Spring. All events are free and open to the public.

Hunt & Gather: Work in Progress by MA students
2022-03-09 - 2022-03-16
The inaugural cohort of eleven MA students developed work-in-progress as a part of “Collaborations & Community,” a course taught by the Center’s director Dr. Tania El Khoury. The collaborative creative projects span various formats and artistic mediums, from dinner performance, live art, digital work, party, and posters.
Wednesday 9 March
Howls in the Mountains by Carol Montealegre 2:30pm (Resnick Studio, Bard College)
Bai Tsai’s Tsai Fan by Baitsai (Yiqun) Luo 6pm (7351 S Broadway, Red Hook)
Between the Railroad & the River by Isabella Indolfi (Digital)
Thursday 10 March
Sound Bounds by Hattie Wilder Karlstrom 5:30pm (Behind Manor, Bard College)
Wednesday 16 March
Unpopular Opinions by Majd Al Rafie (Ongoing: Campus Center, Bard College)
Cocktail Party by Nour Annan 2:30pm (Studio North, Bard College)
Naked Sword by Paul Zalevskii 4:00pm (Studio North, Bard College)
Capitalism Doesn’t Exist by Ali Hussein Al-Adawy & Tâm Liêu Âm 5:00pm (Montgomery Place, Bard College)
Little Lamb by Garrett Sager 6:30pm (Bard Hall, Bard College)
Janzeer by Adam HajYahya 7:30pm (Resnick Studio, Bard College)

Mohammed El-Kurd: “Bombs, women, children, etc”: Humanization, Victimhood, and the Politics of Appeal
2022-03-08 17:30 - 19:00 | Bard College, Campus Road, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, 12504, United States
For decades, well-meaning journalists and cultural workers used a humanizing framework in their representation of oppressed people, in hopes of countering the traditional portrayal of the Palestinian as a “terrorist.” Within this framework, a perfect victimhood emerged as an ethnocentric prerequisite for sympathy and solidarity, often over-emphasizing oppressed people’s nonviolence, humane professions, and disabilities. In “Bombs, women, children, etc.”: Humanization, Victimhood, and the Politics of Appeal, El-Kurd unpacks the impact such practices of “defanging,” which reproduce the mainstream cultural order in which Palestinians are robbed of their agency, right to self-determination, and, ultimately, their humanity.

Co-presented by the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Bard College.
Location: RKC 103, Bard College

Mohammed El-Kurd: “Bombs, women, children, etc”: Humanization, Victimhood, and the Politics of Appeal
2022-03-08 17:30 - 19:00 | Bard College, Campus Road, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, 12504, United States
For decades, well-meaning journalists and cultural workers used a humanizing framework in their representation of oppressed people, in hopes of countering the traditional portrayal of the Palestinian as a “terrorist.” Within this framework, a perfect victimhood emerged as an ethnocentric prerequisite for sympathy and solidarity, often over-emphasizing oppressed people’s nonviolence, humane professions, and disabilities. In “Bombs, women, children, etc.”: Humanization, Victimhood, and the Politics of Appeal, El-Kurd unpacks the impact such practices of “defanging,” which reproduce the mainstream cultural order in which Palestinians are robbed of their agency, right to self-determination, and, ultimately, their humanity.

Co-presented by the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Bard College. Location: RKC 103, Bard College

Moderated by Ziad Abu-Rish (Center for Human Rights and the Arts, Bard College)

Kendall Thomas: Taking (A)part: Human Rights, Human Rites, "Human Writes"
2022-02-25 12:00 - 13:30
In Taking (A)part: Human Rights, Human Rites and “Human Writes,” Kendall Thomas revisits “Human Writes,” a 2005 performance-installation about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on which he collaborated with the choreographer William Forsythe and The Forsythe Company. The cultural theorist Stuart Hall once argued that in the arts “things get said in ways in which they can’t get said in any other domain.” In his talk, Thomas takes the triangulated homonymic relationship between “rights,” “rites,” and “writes” as a point of departure for exploring the uses and limits of “participation” as an aesthetic politics and practice for building a culture of human rights.

Bhenji Ra: Everything at Once: Permaculture, abolition, and trans love
2022-02-11 16:00 - 17:30
How do we exist in complexity and contradiction? Can we mourn and celebrate all at once? In a world focused on binaries, where do we find power on the edges? In this talk, Bhenji speaks to the beauty of everything at once, of finding meaning between practices, bridging bodies and islands of knowledge together in order to expand our potential of living. With a body centred practice, she approaches community with the principles of permaculture, prison abolition and of course, ignited with radical trans love.

Tastes of Loss
2021-12-06 12:00 - 13:30
World premiere of a CHRA digital commission, featuring a Q&A with artist Alexandre Paulikevitch and writer Romy Lynn Attieh, moderated by curator Amanda Abi Khalil and co-presented by CEC ArtsLink.
Tastes of Loss tells the story of a dancer’s intimate relationship to food cooking and preservation. It is a visual essay on survival, womanhood, and joy. It is filmed in the artist’s family kitchen where he learned from his late mother the techniques of dehydrating, canning, and fermenting food for the winter or for the next war. Tastes of Loss marks the dancer’s return home. The body finds its way back to stuffed vine leaves, tree branches, and vast rural landscapes.

Sayak Valencia - The Livestreaming Regime: From Gore Capitalism to Contemporary Snuff Politics
2021-11-15 12:00 - 13:30
What is “gore capitalism” and how does it turn into “snuff politics” in the borderlands between Tijuana and San Diego? In answering those questions, Sayak Valencia discusses examples of audiovisual devices and virtual social networks that challenge the regime of truth through what she calls “the livestreaming regime.” Her talk considers how the contemporary body has become a platform for a new media-disseminated common sense that produces bio-hyper-mediated subjectivities. She analyzes viral trends, fashion, and acts of cultural as well as corporeal appropriation that crystallize in diverse bodies and demonstrate the influence of virtual networks in the construction of the material world.

Sayak Valencia: The Livestreaming Regime: From Gore Capitalism to Contemporary Snuff Politics
2021-11-15 12:00 - 13:30

Githa Hariharan: The Writer in Search of Citizenship
2021-11-01 12:00 - 13:30
How does a writer find her voice? And how does she locate herself among the power structures that operate in the world around her? Drawing on her own work, Githa Hariharan examines the writer’s struggle to enlarge the small space occupied by an individual life. She describes the project of giving voice to a mosaic of voices and their multiple narratives, mapped onto diverse locations. Using her own journey as a writer, and her social commitments as a citizen, she traces the creative process through several prisms, from politics to cultural locations to strategies of craft.

Only God Can Make Tomato Sauce
2021-10-18 12:00 - 13:30
World premiere of a CHRA digital commission, featuring a Q&A with artist Brian Lobel and writer Season Butler, moderated by Jack Ferver (Bard College).
Two friends and food makers share their recipes for healing, their personal histories and food journeys, and wider reflections on medicine versus the medicinal, knowledge versus expertise, the homegrown and the home-y, the wholesome and the holy-cow-get-that-away-from-me.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Natq: Impossible Speech
2021-10-04 12:00 - 13:30
Lawrence Abu Hamdan presents ‘Natq’, a live audiovisual essay on the politics and possibilities of reincarnation. Through listening closely to “xenoglossy” (the impossible speech of reincarnated subjects), this performance explores a collectivity of lives who use reincarnation to negotiate their condition at the threshold of the law—people for whom injustices and violence have escaped the historical record due to colonial subjugation, corruption, rural lawlessness, and legal amnesty. In the piece, reincarnation is not a question of belief but a medium for justice.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan - Natq: Impossible Speech
2021-10-04 12:00 - 13:30

Coco Fusco: The Right to Have Rights: Cuban Artists Confront the State
2021-09-20 12:00 - 13:30
Fusco will discuss the recent efforts by “artivists” in Cuba to advocate for expanded expressive freedoms and civil rights. She will focus primarily on the activities of the 27N group and the San Isidro Movement.

Dwala Lam'
2021-06-14 11:00 - 13:00
World premiere of a CHRA digital commission, featuring a Q&A with artist Sethembile Msezane and writer Dr. Portia Malatjie, moderated by Panashe Chigumadzi and hosted by Wits School of Arts.
Praise singing and movement is the celebration of presence. Dwala Lam’ is a praise song that reminds one of the groundedness that is inscribed in their ancestry. These inscriptions, may come by way of being christened by a name that charts out your destiny, creates relief, a warm smile in a quiet moment or even conveys a message to the world.
The names that are often given in African cultures are the hopes and wishes of families that raise the bearer of the name. These names may be passed down through generations, they may be whispered to an expecting mother in her sleep. The names become the accession of ancestry but they are also a reminder to the bearer of the name of their significance, to remember this in good as well as challenging times.
The whispers of the praise songs from one’s ancestors are the protective spells that affirm us in the ebb and flow of life.

Hands to Hold
2021-06-03 11:30 - 13:00
World premiere of our third digital commission, featuring a Q&A with artist Emilio Rojas and writer Pamela Sneed hosted by Dr. Sanjay Kumar (Central European University).
Hands to Hold is centered around 2 durational performances devised by Emilio Rojas. For a 6.5-hour performance, the artist drank a 1.5 gallons of sap from a 250 year old sugar maple in the Hudson Valley. This action took place in the ancestral homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people where Rojas resides. 1.5 gallons is the amount of blood flowing through our bodies at all times. This durational performance embodies a transfusion of fluids, the blood of the tree, into the artist’s bloodstream. In the second performance, Rojas created casts of his hands, made soap molds, and performed the ritual of ablution for 8 hours.
In this collaboration between Rojas and poet Pamela Sneed, the artists recognize the labor of artists and black and brown people during this past year of pandemic. It is an attempt to send a blessing to all those hands that by holding on, have held us through. Hands to Hold is a journey of gratitude and acknowledgement, a litany to the pandemics (AIDS and Covid-19) and the waves of mourning around us. It is an attempt to memorialize the intersections of our relationships to this land and the systems of oppression that we’ve inherited.
