[D66] New World Embassy: Azawad

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http://www.bak-utrecht.nl/en/Program/NewWorldEmbassy?parent=Index

06.09.–09.10.2014
New World Embassy: Azawad
a project by Moussa Ag Assarid and Jonas Staal
	
BAK, Utrecht
	
exhibitionsurvival

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    In the context of BAK’s long-term research project Future
Vocabularies and its inaugural entry on “survival,” writer and
representative of Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad [National
Liberation Movement of Azawad] (MNLA) Moussa Ag Assarid and artist Jonas
Staal present the collaborative project New World Embassy: Azawad.

    New World Embassy: Azawad explores the intersection of art, theory,
and activism through the proposition of temporarily instituting an
operational embassy as an extraterritorial space of representation,
negotiation, and international exchange. Azawad is a stateless state in
the northern region of Mali, declared by the political and military
organization MNLA after an uprising in 2012. Although not recognized by
any other state in the world, their claim of independence is an outcome
of a lengthy, conflict-ridden struggle with and against the legacy of
French colonialism in Africa. Led by the Tuareg, the movement strives
toward the realization of the right to self-determination for
multiethnic populations, including the Songhai, Fula, and Arab peoples
from the Sahara and Sahel regions. After years of conflict with jihadist
groups, the MNLA is currently negotiating the future of their territory
with the French mission Operation Serval and the United Nation’s
MINUSMA, of which the Dutch army is also a part.

    The project includes an intervention on BAK’s facade and an interior
installation, accompanied by contributions from documentary filmmakers
Rob Schröder and Gabriëlle Provaas. It functions as an embassy workplace
for Azawadian representatives to establish international relations and
seek cultural acknowledgement. At the heart of this endeavor is the
conviction that the state as a cultural expression precedes the state as
an administrative and military structure. A stateless state is
maintained through language, poetry, music, and literature, as well as
through visual signs and imagery. It is art that carries the history of
a people, and with it, the promise of a new world.

    On 9 September 2014 at 19.00 hrs, Ag Assarid and Staal are joined
for discussion at the inauguration of the embassy by political scientist
Jolle Demmers (Center for Conflict Studies, Utrecht University);
politician Jasper van Dijk (Socialist Party, Netherlands); independent
war journalist Arnold Karskens; artist Mazou Ibrahim Touré; and diplomat
Jeroen Zandberg (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization), among
others. The debate is moderated by former war correspondent and cultural
journalist Raymond van den Boogaard (NRC Handelsblad).

    Following New World Embassy: Azawad, a fourth session of New World
Academy, established by Staal in collaboration with BAK in 2013, takes
place under the title The Art of Creating a State (17–19 October 2014).