koudoundar كودوندار
Workshop Program for Artists with Migration Background
As someone trusting in intersectional solidarities to face interlinked systems of oppression I developed a program which offers racialized artists an exchange and opportunity platform with filmmaking, storytelling and performance art.
We aim to go beyond a white-centric world view based on guilt, victimizing, criminalizing and othering. It produces an oversimplified fixed hierarchy that actually serves colonial structures. It makes us forget that racism is also internalized and that it has specific forms, such as anti-Blackness, which our moments of togetherness shouldn’t ignore. I know it’s difficult to challenge the patriarchy and ableism of art. Like it’s difficult to break its classy rules and their power to shape narratives and define taste. But let’s try to ruin this business by overcoming our fears and unleashing our souls. I want to be as cheesy and mad as I wish. Let’s look for ways to heal the wounds of our communities: engage in criticism and reflection in our homes to make them livable, warm and strong.
Are you curious about the program’s name? Come! We will discuss it in every workshop. One hint: It helps us to look at the past and the present...
Rajaa Shamam, curator of the koudoundar program
Film Workshop
How to live in the Future
Workshop: 1-12 October 2018
Application Deadline: 15. September 2018
'How to live in the Future' is a 2-week intense film workshop that aims to discuss, write, film and imagine possible futures
The future is a wide theme that encompasses a number of interests that could be worked on within the topic. The future could be that of the body, the future of intimacies, our personal futures or it could be a macro future that entails disasters, that bring about change. Far from western influence that colonised our vision of the future through male/western mainstream cinema, we are trying to explore a future that is created based on one’s original geo-political history and reality.
Fantasy and future narratives has been a great part of the culture of the global south in general. From weird sea monsters in the adventures of Sinbad to fantastic stories from the African mythology to futuristic depictions of the afterlife of ancient tribes and civilisations.
Workshop Program
WEEK 1
- Introduction of the concept of the workshop.
- Watch and discuss the genres of Afro futurism, fantasy among others as resistance tools to oppressive realities and to the imposition of the western mainstream of future narratives.
- Learn the tools that are needed for our concepts (basic tools that are needed for realising the projects of the participants, basic camera work, sound recording and editing if needed).
- Concepts development of participant’s projects.
- Production of a short video by each of the participants.
WEEK 2
- 2 groups of 4 participants with each mentor during production process.
- Discussion of material shot + one on one sessions with participants.
- Post-production
- Curating the online exhibition
- Finalising with mentors and participants
The third week , the production of the exhibition will take place but is non-obligatory for participants.
Apply if you are:
- interested in an alternative narrative other than the white mainstream of futuristic depictions.
- interested in producing a short video from a concept of your choice to take part in an online exhibition as an outcome of our workshop.
- interested in working with a team from concept development to production of a group exhibition.
Send a us one paragraph about yourself and one paragraph about your concept or an idea that you want to work on during the workshop or simply tell us how you imagine the future. If you prefer you can also send us a recorded voice message or a video instead of writing a text.
The future could be anything so apply and let’s write the future ;)
Please send you application in Arabic or English to safaashamam(at)gmail.com
Application Deadline: September 15, 2018
LANGUAGES: the workshop will be in English (unless everyone is fluent in Arabic). If you are not fluent in English do not hesitate to apply in advance for an interpreter to another language. We will try our best.
A limited number of participants are selected to participate in the workshop and exhibition.
Rajaa Shamam
Rajaa Shamam
Rajaa Shamam is a Berlin based artist, lecturer and researcher focusing on Blackness, gender and colonialism through film, sound, words and platforms.
Recent works:
Looking for – spoken word about shame (2018)
Listen and break – a cathartic sound installation about anger (2017)
Our history is not shallow – a post-colonial video essay (2017)
Trans yes, but what else? – video on the “Trans-Formations Trans* Film Festival Berlin 2016”
As a Black African lecturer at the KUNSTHALLE AM HAMBURGER PLATZ of the 'weißensee kunsthochschule berlin' Rajaa came up with “post-post-colonialism” to deconstruct colonial violence in contemporary art, especially when it calls itself “political”, through a seminar and a group exhibition.
As a Darfurian queer-feminist researcher she created a space in an association for survivors of sexualized violence. It focuses on the adverse effects of NGOs that work on khitan (circumcision) without considering its overlap with race, class and other stigmas. After decades of spreading shaming images of genitals, stereotypes of “African poverty” and dehumanizing terms such as FGM, NGOs seem surprised that khitan is rising.
