LPE: October, 04, 2007
Discussion/Performance Naked conference with Sands Murray-Wassink, production by QUEER SQUARE SKOPJE an inter - media festival organized by Macedonian Association for Free Sexual Orientation (MASSO)
QUEER SQUARE SKOPJE an inter - media festival that is to include series of visual art events, video screenings, performances, presentations, round tables, panel discussions and event with DJs sets on the main square in Skopje named as Out Party which for the first time will work most directly on the visibility of LGBT people in Macedonia and will take place from the 2nd till the 6th of October. It aims to break gender stereotypes and cultural isolation faced by the LGBTQ people in Macedonia, and brings light to the issue of equality.
Programme:
17-18.30 - Dressed conference - A small conference with local speakers and Sands Murray-Wassink , Slavco Dimitrov, Zarko Trajanovski moderated by Ph.D Suzana Milevska, curator of the project. press to exit project space
19.30 - Naked conference 1 - Projection of the video
Naked conference 1 and ½” - A discussion/performance with Sands Murray-Wassink moderated by Suzana Milevska
Sands Murray-Wassink (1974) is an American artist who lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands since 1994. He acquired his formal education in several schools and institutes in USA and Italy, and finalized it at the Rietveld Academy and the De Ateliers in Amsterdam 1996. He has taken part in several teachings, commissions and internships and has realized over 30 solo and group exhibitions and over 20 performances and projects in Europe and the USA. S.M.-Wassink has gained 4 prominent awards and has been nominated for 2 more. He questions the role of the artist, how one is "supposed" to act and interact with his/her environment while undermining taboos surrounding the gay, male body and its sexuality.
Throughout different programme activities especially throughout the whole-day conference on 4 October the Queer Square Skopje will try to put emphasise on the potentialities of queer culture for becoming of minorisation of the majority instead of majorisation of the minority. To put it more precise, instead of trying to aim only towards massive coming out of the minority of LGBTQ community the Festival will attempt on the majorisation of the participation from the non-LGBTQ event’s audience. Therefore the Dressed Conference and the Naked Conference 1 and Naked Conference 1 and ½ will discuss exactly the troubled relation between mainstream activist movements of women’s rights, gender politics and the activists’ fights for human gay rights. The square has always been the public space where since Greek agora till Tienanmen Square the public opinion was shaped, contested and made visible as well as the struggle for freedom of speech and freedom in general. Therefore the square becomes the pivot concept in the center of this year Festival Queer Square Skopje which is mainly a multimedia and discursive visual art project consisting of a series of multimedia events, round tables and panel discussions.
Excerpt of the text Staging the Transgression Suzana Milevska
(Curator of the project)
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