0:01

so good afternoon and welcome to land life

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and liberation part five my name is sally frater and i am the curator of the decolonize this place

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exhibition when we breathe we breathe together which close i guess officially closes

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this weekend at the art gallery of guelph um i’m going to begin our time to today

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together with um the agg’s land acknowledgement today guelph is home to many first

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nations metis and inui people from across turtle island as we gather together we would

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like to acknowledge that the art gallery of guelph resides on the ancestral lands of the arawandaran people and more

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recently these treaty lands and territory of the mississaugas of the credit

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we recognize the significance of the dish with one spoon covenant this land and offer our respect to our

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anishinaabeg haudenosaunee and metis neighbors as we strive to strengthen our relationships

1:00

with them we express our gratitude for sharing these lands for our mutual benefit

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although we are convening virtually and might individually be located in different places

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it is useful for all of us to remember that wherever we are and what is currently referred to as the

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americas we are on indigenous land and that we should move forward in a spirit of

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mindfulness and reciprocity and again i just want to take some time to

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acknowledge the increased violence that has been visited upon members of the asian diaspora

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in canada and the us and the organizations asian americans advancing justice is

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offering free bystander intervention training and other resources that can be

1:49

sought out for more information our stop aapi hate and fight coveted

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racism in canada before we begin some brief housekeeping notes

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since we are in zoom webinar everyone’s microphones are turned off you are welcome to submit questions

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throughout the conversation using the chat function and we will share them with the participants following the close of the

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conversation and i’d like to say a quick thank you to shauna mccabe

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for her technical support throughout this series land life and liberation has been a

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series of five conversations or conversations that will unfold or that have been unfolding as an

2:32

accompaniment to the decolonize this place exhibition when we breathe we breathe together

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which was held at the art gallery of guelph the exhibition and conversations center the colonial operations manual

2:46

which can be downloaded on the website of dtp and the art gallery of guelph as a

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starting point for reflection and action the d colonial operations manual

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embodies the principle of movement generated media and is a document offered as a tool of

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study reflection and action the manual is grounded in five years of collective thinking

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art making and organizing undertaken by decolonize this place with dozens of groups in new york city

3:18

lennae pihoking and beyond with numerous references to movement work

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preceding the establishment of dtp in 2016 as well the scale material quantity and

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distribution form of the manual underscores the importance of freely shared printed matter

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in the work of movement building conversations have explored a number of

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threads related to the confluence of land sovereignty liberation and resistance

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today’s final conversation in this series will feature the members of decolonize this place

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so i’m going to turn that over to you natasha

4:02

i thank you so much for that sally uh we were just talking about how uh can’t believe it’s already been like

4:08

since january and it’s like now may it feels like a full year um so

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today you know what we’re gonna do is actually uh talk about the manual and our experiences you know

4:19

in terms of thinking about decolonize this place and how it uh you know uh works with an

4:24

institut works in the context of institutions from a movement space and so you know some of the terms that we’ve

4:30

been talking about is movement-generated art movement-generated theory uh movement-generated media um and then

4:37

you know how does that kind of all come together and so the manual is actually a good place to

4:42

kind of um start on that so maybe i mean can you pull up the manual and get us going

4:52

um and i just want to say one more thing because you know there’s like yeah um

5:00

you know the we we have we can try and make this a little bit more informal and so to the attendees like you know if you

5:06

have questions as we go please put them in chat and i’ll you know keep uh keep looking at them as well

5:12

because you know we can um have a much more informal conversation around what have been some of our

5:18

failures and successes and how we’ve been you know kind of engaged in this process of unlearning and learn and

5:23

you know and learning and learning um yeah that’s it

5:30

yeah so um this is the front and back cover of the men and i think you know a lot of us come

5:38

from different movements when we started in 2016 and really we took the opportunity of

5:44

being invited uh by artist space to rethink what does it mean to be asked to do an exhibition and then to

5:50

be accountable to movement building and that kind of politics and that kind of aesthetics

5:56

so um that was the one time we were in a gallery and this is the second time

6:01

and in the second time what we did was we thought it was five years you know we’re closing in on 10 years of

6:07

occupy wall street since occupy wall street that should have changed the art world but doesn’t seem like it did

6:14

to um another period of five years from decolonize this place when it began in

6:21

2016 to this moment so thanks to sally and thanks to sean on people that invited us we thought this

6:27

is a good opportunity to study reflect and think about how to act moving forward um and so this is kind of

6:34

our way of putting our knowledge together in a way that could be used so that this

6:40

manual is obsolete and not necessary

6:46

um okay so um this is the first page where

6:53

we say just acknowledging where we are in terms of our invitation in the relationship to land

6:59

and what does it mean to think about these political questions when asked by an institution to do something

7:06

and then the operations orientations how to think of this manual and then internationalism is because we have

7:12

learned over the years especially out of new york city that movements don’t really take anti-imperialism seriously

7:20

so there’s an overall thing around issue silos where people get excited like oh indigenous sovereignty yay or

7:27

black liberation fantastic but when you try to say well how do we collectively get free

7:32

everyone’s like well that’s not my own thing so this is number three and number four is how we kind of perceive

7:37

moving in the world in a way that i mean you uh we can’t see the page that

7:44

you’re currently on yeah we’re still on the hearing is pause

7:49

bring your shared window to the front

7:55

stop sharing and try resharing again okay

8:07

can you see this page yeah can you see this page yeah yeah uh we now we can’t see it

8:14

now you can’t see it because i stopped sharing yeah yeah try it again maybe i’m not the best person for this

8:21

let me let me let me use the website i think the website will be easier how’s this okay um yeah scroll down yeah that’s

8:28

good yeah yeah of course all right fantastic all right so this is the page that i was on

8:34

and this is the triangulation of struggle and then i’m gonna i’m gonna have other people talk about the other slides

8:40

so the triangulation is struggle this is really important is that when people think about 2016 and

8:46

artist space everyone loved what we were doing except when it came to palestine right and that’s when the artist space

8:53

got attention from people that were their supporters and donors and just like oh you know they’re why are you kind of

9:00

getting engaged in palestine so from our standpoint out of new york city we see indigenous struggle black

9:06

liberation and free palestine that triangulation the basis of how we move

9:11

and uh it has made it difficult for people to try to co-opt what we’re doing

9:17

and for us palestine is a litmus test of the people that say they’re progressive and they’re really not

9:24

except for palestine right so um i think this is a good place for amy and

9:30

and and uh you know natasha mars to kind of weigh in on on 2014 which is where this manual kind

9:38

of takes note

9:43

kyle too i mean you were involved in a lot of this stuff so people need to kind of

9:49

tell people about this in a way that the manual

9:55

um do you guys want to go oh sorry i thought it was a noob amy do

10:00

you want to get it started um yeah i could give like uh

10:07

maybe a quick background um around these two images that you see so like on the left you there’s the

10:15

black lives matter poster that was created this is 2014

10:21

after uh right there was the killing of mike

10:27

brown and ferguson and then eric gardner and staten island um as well as the kai gurley in um east new

10:35

york um but uh and then at the same time

10:40

um the continued right war in siege on gaza was happening that summer as well um

10:47

and so um on the left hand side you could see that we created like 11 black lives matter

10:54

banners with the kofia stencil on the side um

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11 to signify that 11 times eric gardner said i can’t breathe and then our

11:06

12th banner that said uh when we breathe we breathe together um

11:12

which is also right the name of this exhibition that we put together

11:17

um because during this time we were thinking about

11:23

um how like palestine and lack liberation

11:31

how that solidarity can work in moving towards collective liberation and also thinking about

11:37

direct action and creative ways of direct action in the city as we’re here so the 11 black lives matter

11:46

banners were deployed throughout the city they kind of had a life of their own they were used like strategically in

11:53

different ways in the streets during marches um

11:58

and uh they kind of were taken up by people you know as as

12:05

they were used and like let to be used in the streets on the right hand

12:13

side you have the image of an action

12:19

on the manhattan bridge where a 90-foot palestinian flag with the words

12:24

gaza in our hearts boycott divest and sanction was unfurled off of the manhattan bridge

12:30

while um a march was happening on the brooklyn bridge which is par

12:36

they’re parallel so as people were uh marching across the brooklyn bridge

12:41

this flag was unfurled and there was this really loud cheer and roar in the city

12:49

that was heard from both bridges and um they’re meant to communicate each other

12:54

with each other um but also a created media right that

12:59

where when people talk about this they have to talk about uh bds right um and that’s just kind of

13:07

a quick background of these images that you’re seeing and how we were thinking about um

13:14

actions within the city as well as like ways to act in solidarity um

13:21

for collective liberation i i would just add to uh just add to what

13:27

amy just said going back to the black lives matter banners you know when we did these 11 banners we were

13:32

also strategically thinking about how banners can operate and how they function for messaging but

13:38

they can also close down intersections close down bridgeways um tunnels things

13:44

like that so we were really thinking in terms of like the scale of this these banners were 30

13:49

feet and 30 feet allowed us to stretch one across the roadway uh you know with movements happening

13:57

simultaneously able to shut down you know roadways and intersections and bridges like i said

14:03

and so that was really kind of the thinking in terms of the scale and how we could deploy these things

14:08

not just about messaging

14:16

so around 2014 2015 um we have uh

14:23

our engagement with the guggenheim again under just different actions

14:28

nick do you want to get us started here yeah i can and can i also share my screen because you’re cropping the in

14:34

the whole manual and i try i just need i’m i’m happy happy

14:43

all right can people see the whole manual now okay that’s good okay do you feel good yeah i do i you

14:49

know it’s like it’s so the whole battle is so image based and text-based and it’s just like being cropped uh the

14:56

whole thing so i’m just like um yeah i think that’s what i mean and you know amy and kyle just mentioned

15:02

i think for us you know you know uh you know as it says training ground and limit point a lot of these as you know

15:08

also thinking about the idea of training in practice of freedom um really a lot of this work

15:13

it’s not really goal oriented as much as it’s process oriented and process of like being engaged in struggle process of

15:20

seeing you know where we can place leverage how we can you know kind of uh you know respond to like this kind of

15:26

brutal violence and power that’s always kind of coming harsh on our communities and where do we have agency

15:33

uh both as artists writers thinkers you know people uh who come from these communities and

15:38

uh in fact uh then 2014 was actually a really important year in the kind of

15:43

uh you know landscape of organizing in new york city mainly because you know in 2011 we just

15:49

had uh occupy wall street which you know uh we mentioned but for us it was you know uh you know occupy wall street was

15:56

also inspired by you know the arab uprisings and also uh you know 15m movement

16:01

and it was really you know a kind of strike against capitalism but it lacked uh analysis of race uh but also

16:07

like why you know occupy something that’s already on occupied land and this was something that was mentioned during that time but

16:15

because the call to occupy wall street was already out and for the sake of you know uh like media and getting

16:21

people together and for the sake of you know the idea of the 99 you know what was to give and what was

16:27

to say was was of course violent once again um and one more thing i would want to say is that

16:32

you know occupy what she did have um actually even though it’s you know a lot of it it’s it’s it’s

16:38

it’s mainly looked at as a white uh middle-class american movement

16:44

but actually a lot of the organizers were organizers of color um who were actually pushing it to kind of break out of its boundaries

16:49

and and you know palestine was one important moment um so were others in that um and so then when 2014 comes about this is an

16:56

important year because you know on the movement side of things like you know you have you know you know you have eric garner’s killing

17:03

you have you know kai gurleys and then you have the gaza war and you had you know the ferguson

17:08

uprising as well around uh mike brown and there was these connections you know this kind of solidarity that has always existed right

17:15

since uh you know the black panthers and earlier we’ve seen that um but it kind of all emerged again across kind of borders

17:22

right which is something that a lot of people have been trying to do is how to actually think outside of the nation state and not movements

17:29

specifically only within you know the borders of the united states or canada or you know but like how do we actually

17:35

engage with each other and so in that context you know um guggenheim new york also became

17:41

a uh important focal point because guggenheim uh is uh has been working with you know

17:48

abu dhabi to start its flagship in in in abu dhabi uh on this island called island which

17:54

literally translates to island of happiness and nyu already exists there it has been there for a long time

18:00

uh the louvre opened up this was uh the louvre opened you know after you know we’ve been doing this work and

18:06

then uh you know there’s also a collaboration with the british museum so once again what you see like you know

18:11

something that we see in new york city is where you know art institutions are forces of gentrification because most of you know

18:18

the real estate developers are on the board and you know as we would go with you know further on we’ll see that it’s also

18:23

like people uh who are part of the war profiting system um and just center colonial violence

18:29

overall right and so what we see with guggenheim abu dhabi is that uh once again this promise of like oh

18:36

you know art history has been to western and this is our chance to kind of change that and therefore we

18:41

need these institutions but once again the question is like okay whose backs are they built on and who

18:46

are these institutions for right it’s once again for you know the ruling class and the elite and to also kind of add this kind of

18:52

tourism you know uh thing in abu dhabi and so for us it was really important that we thought about

18:58

this organizing more in a transnational solidarity kind of a way and uh you know so we are we organized

19:04

with uh you know thinking through workers who were in places you know we went to different states in india talked to workers who returned from

19:11

abu dhabi in dubai and like willing to throw their passports in the trash can to never return back to workers who built the louvre museum

19:17

we spoke about 80 workers who were working on the construction of the museum and to workers also in guggenheim new

19:24

york right because one of the things that we see and you know i’d read saeed and others have pointed out really well is the

19:29

sense of orientalism right we in the west can go save abu dhabi because it does not have labor laws

19:34

versus actually going against the idea of human rights as a whole system which is a settler system to

19:40

begin with because it victimizes people who are going under war or under economic

19:45

um subjugation right in this case and so some of our demands were like you know uh that you know there

19:51

shouldn’t be debt while you know these a lot a lot of workers go into a lot of debt while building these institutions

19:56

that you know and and organizing already happens right people say that you know organizing is not allowed but

20:02

every day workers are organizing in factories they’re doing shutdowns they’re not getting on buses and so how do we actually think of

20:08

amplifying that versus trying to represent that and so none of this work is really about representation

20:13

as much as about enunciation right and so then 2014 becomes this really important point where

20:19

we we talk about the specificity of each struggle and like you know through these kind of acts that are happening around

20:25

the city but also what are these relationships right because uh one of the things that you know um we

20:31

learned i mean audra lord has said it so has uh uh you know um james baldwin about like

20:36

we were never meant to know each other or the fact that you know we we’ve never lived a single issue struggle so how do

20:42

we we never don’t live single issue lives so why should our struggle be uh you know single issues so really kind

20:47

of moving out of these silos and starting to think about how do these movements kind of come about together and so in this case

20:54

you know what we did was went to the guggenheim new york four times using different tactics

21:00

uh you know um uh and like taking over the institution um you know on may day shutting it down

21:05

forcing it to actually uh you know move uh and you know this is really important because you know a lot of times people think

21:12

that uh you know institutional change uh also comes from conversations we did have conversations we

21:18

as actions were going on we also had four separate meetings with the board members and eventually they decided to

21:23

go with you know the tourism department of abu dhabi versus you know some of the research that gulf labor had kind of

21:30

brought in front of us and um yeah so um that’s it and and then you know we can talk about the tactics

21:36

over here i think as well well do you think it makes sense should i spend time on that two minutes on the tactics

21:41

yeah yeah okay i mean this is i think important for especially people who are thinking about you know doing their own

21:48

actions it’s not necessary to always think about actions as a spectacle right it’s not necessary that they need to be

21:54

having 100 people uh that you know uh that it needs to be like this massive organizing project

22:00

at this point you know there’s overload of information around how institutions are harming us every day what they’ve

22:05

done there’s enough research but really how do we actually make our own agency into these institutions so

22:10

for example you know i would point out to this grid of images on the right-hand side where you see

22:15

you know these paintings and people just kind of you know plastering um these images around uh the wall of the institution so what

22:22

we would do is we would meet uh you know not like it was all through word of mouth none of it was on social media

22:28

we would meet at the met which was like five blocks away we would come together we would train we would talk about what the action is

22:34

each week and so for example for this week what we were doing was the show that was going on at that time was called italian futurism

22:41

and so the aesthetic that we used was is this the future of art right is this how art institutions are meant to be built

22:46

sustained um and so we had these little stickers and for that action what happened was

22:51

and so we use the aesthetics of the institution to go back but we made teams of three people so they were these smaller dreams and in

22:58

the team one person was somebody who was tickering the other one was watching out and the third was kind of documenting right so a small

23:05

team of three people went in and was able to do these actions on different floors

23:10

and and it was really important because once again no art was harmed but again it brings you to this idea of

23:15

like what happens you know in an institution with white walls immediately their insurance went up you know this was something that forced them

23:21

to kind of further think about you know what you know what kind of action is happening but all this to say

23:26

is like three people or two people can also do these actions and it’s not just necessarily about creating the spectacle of you know

23:33

activism in some ways um so i think this brings us to then you know um

23:39

decolonize this place um does anybody else want to uh start this yeah mars yeah yeah okay cool

23:46

so decolonize this place um so this um this part of the manual of

23:53

this spread and i believe the next spread as well um has to do with the work at the brooklyn

23:59

museum um um the first time that uh

24:04

folks visited the brooklyn museum was in 2016. um it’s spring 2016. i believe it was uh

24:12

the colonial cultural front um that visited uh the museum which

24:19

you know it’s funny because there’s a lot of that’s dcf you know there’s a lot of acronyms that

24:26

um that are being used all over this manual criminals just a bunch of criminals but

24:31

anyways uh dcf which happens to include a lot of the beautiful faces that you see here

24:37

um um wanted to point out two exhibitions at the museum as it

24:43

related to larger movement struggles the first exhibition was the this place

24:49

exhibition which is a multi-million dollar photography exhibition i believe it has

24:56

12 of the world’s top fine art photographers like um uh stephen shaw

25:04

and folks like that anyways the this place that they’re referring to um is palestine israel when you when you

25:13

actually was just on brooklyn museum’s website um the other day looking at the way that they described

25:18

the exhibition which is one where they see themselves as providing a platform

25:24

to discuss um the conflict right um in in within the the

25:31

exhibition text itself there is no mention of palestine there is no mention of occupation um

25:37

there is no mention of bds there is no mention of um anything except for a conflict um

25:44

the you know israel is used um in fact when you go into the exhibition which is um you know a lot of

25:52

really beautiful landscape photography some portrait photography um

26:00

but at the same time uh palestine palestinians any sort of reference to a struggle on

26:06

to an occupation to genocide to displacement dispossession is completely erased

26:12

and artwashed um from the show itself um so for us um you know

26:20

taking seriously uh stephen seleda’s um kind of uh calling his work uh

26:26

internationalism to if you’re going to point over there to palestine to also think about the land that you’re

26:32

um situated on um we also thought through the fact that the united states is a settler colony right and so one of

26:39

the chants that came out of this action specific to this exhibit was from brooklyn to palestine

26:46

occupation is a crime this settler colonialism is a structure not an event

26:52

kind of diagram um you know um uh satellite clonalism is a structure

26:58

not an event um referring to patrick wolf’s work but also a lot of other folks uh

27:05

work in our own doing and practice in the movement has kind of led us to this diagram

27:10

around um how empire operates here um

27:16

but also in different and how it operates um kind of a model for how it operates

27:22

elsewhere or how it can operate or there’s you know elsewhere as well

27:27

both here specifically but we were thinking of these things in reference to palestine as well the

27:33

other exhibition was agitprop um agit prop uh

27:39

was very a very i don’t know if irony is the correct

27:44

word um it was just kind of blatantly ridiculous because to be honest because the museum

27:52

um you know they they put on a show um uh of like a 50 years or so

28:00

um of revolutionary art essentially um um from different movements

28:08

uh including um gentrification movements of today right and they installed it in

28:15

phases so it started with kind of older um uh agit prop and then moved to movements

28:22

of today um part of the reason why that was the case is because

28:28

anti-gentrification organizers in brooklyn were holding the museum accountable

28:34

for hosting the 2016 uh brooklyn real estate summit the sixth annual

28:39

brooklyn real estate summit where the likes of you know uh

28:45

you know board members like um who is who is the real estate tycoon

28:50

at brooklyn museum david berliner david berliner david berliner um

28:57

and and you know other really kind of high-end real estate developers um came to the museum as a venue to kind

29:04

of like you know play real-life monopoly with properties in people’s lives especially

29:10

given the fact that as was mentioned earlier you know the way in which museums play

29:15

uh that the role of gentrification in neighborhoods in black and brown neighborhoods which um you know the neighborhoods that

29:23

border the brooklyn museum are flat bush and crown heights which are historically

29:28

west indian black neighborhoods um so in protest of that one of the museum’s

29:35

kind of um band-aid surface level fixes over that was to include

29:43

um you know some of some of the work of these anti-gentrification um organizers and artists um within the

29:51

museum itself but they kind of fell short on any other kind of um restitutions or reparations

29:58

that folks were calling for so we also paid agitprop a visit um over time um we visited the museum

30:06

a few um a few additional times um one i don’t know if the next yeah

30:14

one thing i just wanted to say was apart from patrick both this is from eve tuck and kay wayne decolonization is not a

30:20

metaphor there’s a paragraph around how they describe external colonialism and internal colonialism

30:25

which kind of you know adds like how we can think about solidarity yeah so here’s some of the images from

30:32

the on the left you’re seeing images from the action i described in the this place exhibition on the

30:38

right you’re seeing images from an action from um

30:43

uh late fall uh 2018 um where um a decolonization commission

30:52

was proposed uh to the museum actually it was also proposed to the museum spring 2018

30:58

um but the decolonization commission is uh is is you know you could look at it

31:04

as one demand um as in you can’t pick and choose certain things that you want to do

31:09

and it includes anything from um territorial acknowledgement of indigenous lands

31:15

made material um really like what does land back look like um in the case of our cultural

31:21

institutions um um having stakeholders from the community

31:26

um as you know from the community that museum um you know sits within as well as the

31:33

indigenous community as well as artists right so a wider range of stakeholders um to to really think

31:39

through um the the decisions of the museum kind of around that question of museum

31:45

governance um and an institutional commitment to address the issues raised

31:51

by bds right in palestine amongst many other things like um better working conditions better

32:00

wage conditions all these things um and then you’ll also see uh reparations and

32:06

repatriation now um you know the brooklyn museum has the us’s um top uh collection of african

32:15

art uh much of um which if not all of which um stolen and looted

32:22

through imperial plunder right um and so

32:28

that’s a huge part of the decolonization commission as well repatriation um yeah and then how was this acquired

32:36

by whom for whom at whose cost

32:42

uh amin or amy do you guys want to get a start on this

32:52

i can get started yep i’ll just say that like you know this was an opportunity that

32:58

came to us and the conversation you know uh the conversation began in

33:03

such a way that uh people wanted to see

33:10

through the gallery the art and the work that has been done as part of let’s say the movement occupy

33:17

wall street and what was interesting about that moment is we had long moved on

33:22

from that thinking in the sense of like that was a moment of rupture

33:27

uh movements take years to mature what are the lessons that we learned how

33:33

can we enact them in terms of aesthetics organizing action how can we think of galleries as a site

33:40

of gathering of building of pedagogy that isn’t mediated by the institution

33:47

so it wasn’t that it was a no or a yes to artist space it was a set of conversations

33:52

that led us to con an arrangement that we felt was useful and kind of draws on the under

33:59

commons when the gallery agreed to give us the space and give us the budget

34:06

we thought to ourselves okay this is three months in which we have protection from the state because we’re inside to begin to kind of

34:14

enact a formation in the city that can be able to do things

34:20

and this formation can come around six strands of struggle um indigenous sovereignty and struggle

34:28

black liberation free palestine degentrification global wage workers and towards the end

34:35

we had to enunciate dismantling patriarchy from that from that standpoint

34:43

we did our own programming and did our own collaborations and invited artists and thought through what does it

34:50

mean to be to do this kind of work within a movement framework that begins from one

34:56

place different than the art world and intends to go to a horizon different than what the art world thinks about

35:02

because ultimately it’s about getting free and we brought our friends and we

35:07

thought of decentering whiteness and we had conversations over two months and figured out what kind of movies we want to show what

35:15

kind of food we want to have for free banner makings these kind of things and actions came later

35:21

but these are some of the images of all the different activity and events and it was electrifying

35:27

it was nourishing there was a lot of beauty and a lot of

35:32

love and a lot of creation there um that really it just i don’t think the

35:37

art world even knows how to wrap its head around um but what was important from that

35:42

point onward is that we were able to decolonize this place as a decolonial formation in the

35:48

city had horizontal power and buy-in from people and communities

35:55

and the redistribution of the resources from artist space and the total control

36:01

we had in what we were able to do were the necessary conditions for us to enter

36:06

into a gallery amy if you want to add anything more

36:11

specific it’s also the same

36:18

um yeah i mean one of the things to add on is like this was a space

36:27

where people can gather um that was at least in new york city a more

36:33

centralized location for people from the outer boroughs of like bronx queens brooklyn

36:39

could gather in manhattan and and see each other right because the

36:46

building of these relationships were important in the work that we do and how we grow

36:52

deeper right within our thinking and the organizing and um

37:00

like uh for example in our trainings right like when we move we tend to move with like a

37:08

trusted group a trusted crew you know um and so the relationships that were built

37:14

within um artist space like as a movement center and headquarters was really

37:21

important so um yeah it was also where we could create materials that’s where

37:28

we had like production parties where like people are invited to socialize as well as create like banners

37:36

and other signage that would be used like in actions in the streets uh

37:43

and deployed throughout the city um you know like i mean mentioned there

37:48

were like film screenings there were um like coquito parties there

37:54

were um like poetry slams there were also like panels and discussions so it like

38:00

was the space where whatever people could dream of it could it could happen um and it

38:09

yeah it was like um the whole feel and the vibe of the

38:15

gallery was kind of taken out and it was made for people to make their

38:20

own and really see and like kind of explore what that could look like and how we see

38:27

each other and how we can recognize each other then also organize and move together um yeah i don’t know maybe kyle

38:36

if you have more to say about the training and all of that well i was just going to say you know

38:41

the thing that was also really interesting about artist space was it was a it was a time in which people were

38:46

meeting each other for the first time so people in you know all five boroughs

38:53

doing work within their communities were able to meet other groups and other individuals

39:00

working in their communities and share stories and share share share uh strategies what what was

39:08

what’s working for them what wasn’t working for them and then really grow from there um it was a it was a time in which i

39:15

think also our small group kind of really solidified itself

39:21

i think prior to this there were people kind of coming in and out of our group and then once we kind of

39:28

exit artist space we kind of are like this solid core that has just been moving as one

39:34

you know since then so it was uh yeah it was a time in which like

39:43

i don’t know hopefully it’s not one of those once in a lifetime things because we were saying the whole time like

39:49

hopefully this thing blossoms everywhere and we were really trying not to have

39:54

any kind of ownership to it like a brand but really just like a way forward for everybody

40:01

um to look at what we were doing and see what was possible where they were

40:06

and really kind of just you know um yeah like like like i said it was really about

40:12

hoping that this thing could blossom anywhere and everywhere it was needed so it was a really wonderful time

40:18

those three months but also it was a really exhausting time like you know the amount of work that

40:25

was actually produced and the actions and the theories and the organizing and the meetings and the food

40:33

like it was every single day for three months by

40:40

not a large core group of people you know people came came in and out and there was when people needed the space it became

40:46

known that this space could work and so people showed up you know at any given moment

40:53

uh but it was a lot of work that happened within that three month period yeah so yeah and then it’s like vowing

41:01

ever since yeah i mean i also think just to add to what you guys are saying i mean i think

41:07

this was also the time where you know the way the art world has thought about movement aesthetics and

41:13

try to bring it into exhibitions it kind of like opened it up and like ruptured the whole idea of how you even can think about

41:19

protest shows right because it wasn’t about because that’s how we were approached first right that was the approach was like can you show

41:25

your archives and for us the archive is always active and it’s always present it’s not something in the past

41:31

we don’t think of archives as a linear thing right we think of archives even as action and so when you know we

41:37

started thinking about this is like okay you have something like i mean our space is rent is like 18 000 a month right so and i think this is

41:46

really important for people to understand because we’re talking about the manual as like you know also how galleries function is that

41:52

value isn’t just on the artist fee value isn’t just you know like weight certified

41:58

penalty and that was something that we you know contested while we were at the space because artist space was a

42:03

weight-certified um kind of um institution but one of the things that you see is that

42:09

it’s weight certified within the same settler system right it’s like once again it’s like it’s looking at work and

42:15

labor within that system whereas we’re constantly producing work we’re constantly producing knowledge and it’s not objectifying it’s not about

42:21

boxing them and it was that way you know so just going over what kyle was saying it was a much more fluid space where

42:28

you know the kind of knowledge production you know the aesthetics the food all of that was part of organizing uh but you know also doing

42:35

these actions so it kind of like worked in the film screenings were also uh part of that so based on the action

42:40

we were having we would you know do a film screening around that or like you know um so it was kind of a conversation

42:46

happening on all ends and one thing i would like to say is it also challenged uh you know what aesthetics mean or what

42:53

form actually means in the context of what we even call art um and and i think that it’s really

42:58

important to bring that because you know there’s a lot of conversation now um and we’ve seen that you know since uh

43:03

since a long time and you know there was a banner earlier which said they want the art not the people the

43:09

difference between this exhibition was there were the people which unsettled them it wasn’t just the art of the people and

43:16

so when you bring in the people that’s when you know the whole thing gets unsettled and that’s what you see even with institutions like you know

43:22

the next slide is american museum of natural history which was also an action that was you know part of you know came

43:28

from you know the artist space kind of thing where you know it wasn’t like you know and and you know usually you would see

43:34

that you know the art is usually separated uh from people in these modes but what we were doing in

43:40

in our space was there wasn’t a difference we were making you know we were making aesthetics we were organizing we were eating we were

43:45

there wasn’t this like glass case or like a separate exhibition wall i mean even the banners that we put up

43:52

would like go out for actions and come back and they would change over time and so it was very fluid in that way uh

43:57

where you know there weren’t these it blurred the boundaries of so many things and one last thing i think amy

44:02

mentioned and and also just in relation to the question i think frank asked you know uh one of the things is that you know we

44:09

might be organizing around these struggles and like doing solidarity work but so much of this work is actually

44:14

relational and so you know as mentioned a lot of these relations around gentrification

44:19

around you know thinking about um being on stolen land uh you know you know how do these all

44:25

kind of come together were formed uh during uh thinking about you know as we kind of held space together right

44:31

so then we started talking about gentrification also as long time long term displacement not just in the context of gentrification which is

44:37

something happening now what what does gentrification mean uh when you’re on stolen land right um

44:43

yeah did did you have to say any did you want to say anything kyle

44:48

i was to just i wanted to just talk about like aesthetics just for a second

44:53

because um you know when you know some of the actions that we did

44:58

prior to going into artist space um we were kind of like hijacking so to

45:03

speak and i always kind of thought about like oh we’re hijacking the art that exists like in artists space i mean in

45:10

like decolonize this place action we hijacked their brand and kind of redid it for the decolonize

45:16

this place and in the guggenheim we were hijacking the brand for whatever was happening in the museum

45:22

and later on we were doing the same thing but i’ve now come to realize or think about it in a way of like

45:27

liberating the aesthetics as opposed to hijacking and thinking about liberation in the same

45:35

way that hijackers you know say when the pflp was hijacking planes or the panther

45:41

or hijacking planes those people were liberating themselves to get to another place

45:47

where they were liberating you know the the plane to call attention to what was happening

45:54

in palestine you know after the 68 war things like that so now i’ve come to like kind of rethink

46:02

like that we’re liberating these things and and like even even the stuff that you know like

46:08

looking at things that come before us i’ve always i always kind of think of myself and the work that i do is

46:13

standing on the shoulders of giants in terms of like the people that have kind of pushed this stuff forward before

46:19

i got here and so i’m really into the idea of activating archives that these archives aren’t frozen in

46:26

time they don’t just exist for this one moment but we’re part of this lineage of what comes

46:32

before and what comes after us and we’re building for the next generation to leave something that they

46:38

can build on just like the people behind us and so really it’s like we’re we’re constantly looking at

46:45

archives and reactivating things in a way that we’re not like it doesn’t feel like we’re we’re imposing

46:51

on somebody else’s brand but really just building that next kind of continuation of how this how these

46:58

movement things can keep pushing history forward and that the next generation that comes behind us

47:05

or comes after us can then build on and activate this stuff so i just wanted to say that yeah

47:13

um amy you wanted to say something or should i continue with this even age thing i felt like you wanted to

47:19

say something you’re good um i mean i think i

47:24

was just gonna uh it’s it’s things that i think you touched on and uh just about how like in the space

47:32

like the politics that we talk about everything that we’re talking about is able to be embodied and actually lived out in practice and i

47:40

think this also is a way to answer the question that came up of like how do you deal with um

47:47

right mental health costs the relational costs right all of that stuff where it’s like

47:53

um when when you’re living it and it’s like in your practice and it’s in the

47:58

conversations you have with people it’s how you look like can look at people in the eye

48:03

how you can share a space with a person then like these politics

48:08

are being worked out in the moment in real time right and like this is where like

48:13

the space became something it was alive right the space was alive

48:20

with the politics and it’s not just things that were hung on the wall right draped over like you know like

48:27

like um something to just look at but it’s something that gets lived

48:32

and like um right that’s the bringing the people in it’s the people it’s that create the art

48:39

that create the actions that create culture that create that create all of this stuff and life

48:45

and so um yeah just like these having this that opportunity was

48:50

to really have all the politics that we’re talking about now embodied and lived and this is where the

48:56

training also was important because we were acting it out right we were in the physical training

49:03

and emotional and mental training of of this work that we’re talking about

49:09

um amin and mars do you want to add anything because i think it’s an important point and then i can just go through the rest of them quickly to

49:15

arrive at the whitney and ftp because i think we will be running out of time but do you guys want to add anything on

49:21

these points i mean i i can take a stab at this question because i think it relates to

49:27

the entire piece of it i think that once you start seeing as art

49:33

you know thinking of art having to measure up to us and the us is in construction meaning we’re

49:39

building it and the us is recognition of debts that we owe each other and to refuse the debts

49:44

that are being imposed on us by hierarchies of power this kind of unsettles the way the

49:52

structure is set up and it clearly puts tensions and pressures on relationships when you do the work

50:00

what we’ve tried to kind of make clear is that the politics that we try to

50:07

embody in the work that we do and going at structures of power as not that’s not the goal of that it’s

50:14

it’s forced upon us to create space to allow for these relationships to flourish or develop or

50:19

even give them an opportunity and so later you’ll see like well you know how do we think about the whitney

50:26

well there were you know artists of color in the whitney we are artists of color how do we handle

50:32

this situation and i think that the monolith has to be broken there is no monolith

50:37

there’s people that are trying to get free and most of us are trying to get free and there has to be a multiplicity of how we get free and no

50:46

one should try to police or say there’s one way to do it over another

50:52

once you start doing that then you allow for different levels of risk you know i i think that you know it’s

50:58

it’s common not common knowledge but it is not a secret that you know i was

51:04

interrogated you know i was looked into by the fbi you know from this work

51:10

so there’s there’s a risk there what do you do with that do you stop do the people that talk [ __ ] on social

51:16

media you know is is do they know do they care what do they care about i think like

51:23

these kind of things these tensions they’re not meant to be like personal this is the colonial condition

51:28

in which we operate it and i think that people need to not embody the institution that they work at

51:36

and think that those are synonymous and those are the things that i think all this work is doing

51:41

now could i choose not to take these risks i don’t think i can i don’t think it’s a

51:49

choice um if people think it’s a choice maybe language around privilege matters

51:56

you know maybe it’s a difference of positionalities or responsibilities that we have

52:01

this is not about making people feel bad about the work that they do but it is about opening up possibilities

52:08

for a lot of ways of doing things

52:14

why is uh i think i’m good for now okay

52:21

um well so i’ll just go through you know this is american museum of natural history um this also was the first action

52:27

actually this was one of the first actions that we did while we were at the space um the first one was in collaboration

52:33

with nyc standard standing rock uh you know which is also a group of like you know uh

52:38

you know organ indigenous organizers uh you know thinkers artists curators and you know kind of

52:44

blurring these lines once again and in collaboration with dtp um and you know we’ve done four of these

52:49

over the years and you know and then they’ve looked different each year um but the main three demands have

52:55

remained the same which is renamed the day from you know this happens on uh what is called as columbus day but on

53:01

you know renaming the day from columbus day to indigenous people’s day removing the statue there’s this racist

53:07

you know roosevelt statue with you know an indigenous man and a black man as if they’re both they’re all on the project together with

53:12

theodore roosevelt um rename you know removing that statue and kind of echoing like you know this was an

53:18

action that also indigenous artist in 1972 had like you know thrown paint on this statue so it was something that was

53:23

already uh pointing at that pointed and today you know especially after all the george floyd stuff happened and

53:29

all the kind of monuments started falling down you know at that point de blasio said that we will remove the statue but it’s been

53:35

a year almost and we haven’t really um seen a change in that and then um the last imam was respecting the ancestors

53:42

which is kind of an overhaul demand to kind of overhaul the entire museum right because it’s a museum of you know we

53:48

call it the hall of white supremacy the way you know uh it has structured i mean it’s it’s where the eugenics movement

53:53

was thriving it’s you know the way people uh think of anthropology all of these different disciplines that exist you

53:59

know of study of people or like you know disciplines that other people that’s you know that’s the home

54:04

to uh american musical natural history but also it is the most uh funded museum in new york city and the most visited i

54:10

think in the country and it’s also the place where a lot of students especially public um

54:16

you know public school students are taken and you know when you walk into this museum you know since our the work that we’ve been doing

54:22

this time putting planks on like how indigenous people are not somebody who live in the past or how like

54:27

you know it’s not just in the corner that you have to address enslavement um but you know these are you know respecting the ancestors then becomes

54:34

like this overall kind of a demand which is almost an impossible demand for an settler institution uh because it

54:40

means that they have to actually dismantle themselves to think about what even like institutional memory means and

54:46

how even they can think to uh you know work towards that um and so those were the kind of three demands and

54:52

around that you know each year uh different tactics was used um you know the first year you know you had uh

54:58

the statue was covered you know on the on the right hand side uh people had gathered into the hall the

55:03

second year you know the list of people collaborating kind of became bigger there was chinatown out brigade there was

55:08

uh uh you know south asian solidarity initiative uh take back the bronze uh kamita

55:13

baruchwa like uh you know all these different groups who kind of joined us um and then you know the third one that

55:20

we did was i think one of the most beautiful actions that i’ve ever witnessed where actually you know we did a tour of the museum over

55:27

the last few months but for the third one it was uh more like horizontal uh action where people took up their own histories

55:33

and their own spaces and activated the dead space of the museum right if you actually go inside that museum it doesn’t feel like

55:40

a place you want to inhabit at all or even like walk around it’s extremely violent just looking at uh you know what’s in there but what

55:46

happened that day was one of the most beautiful things that i’ve seen which in terms of this decolonial gathering that kind of came together

55:52

where people heard each other people came from their own context understanding you know uh how coloniality operates in

55:59

these institutions and how we can actually create these pockets of time which are outside the kind of

56:04

colonial pockets of time right and so in some ways what happened that day was like people talk about the colonial

56:10

aesthetics abolitionist it’s all of that it actually happened in action uh versus thinking of it as a

56:15

separate you know art device that we have to look at or now we need to change form uh because we must think about

56:21

representation or diversity and so uh you know dylan rodriguez recently said that you know

56:26

uh aesthetics of abolition are inherently aesthetics of combat and you know many people have talked about

56:32

uh you know aesthetics being as how we live and you know i think what we did that day was show

56:37

how a different way of being able to live and come together and gather and to be able to talk to each other without centering the institution

56:44

without thinking about okay because yeah of course it’s about changing these institutions but it’s also enacting

56:49

the future that we want today now right not thinking in this kind of linear timeline which is the linear settler timeline

56:56

that in the future this institution is going to be abolished in the future this institution is going to be

57:01

decolonized it’s going to happen as we walk into these spaces as we kind of change and you can see that through

57:06

the ripple effects right and this map is kind of a good example of that and how you know through doing

57:12

these different actions and not just as dtp through so many groups these are like i’m talking about

57:17

almost 30 groups at this point in the city who have come and passed over different you know um

57:22

you know struggles and like really thinking about once again what freedom means for us does anybody else want to talk about

57:28

this map or i can go on i think it’s to the next one

57:38

i think just to say that you know this is the centerfold of the manual

57:43

in print form and you know the target is the art system and beyond but really

57:49

you know what we kind of mean by this is like imagine the museums as sites of struggle

57:57

not exceptional from other sites of struggle so then our relationship to the

58:02

institution becomes a site of also antagonisms and ways to enact

58:08

our politics that doesn’t mean that we need to be organized by an organization

58:14

and if we’re saying about things that are far away we should also think think about the things that we have a direct relationship to

58:21

us that are entangled with the art system that you know lowercase artist applies

58:27

to us not necessarily it’s not a class position but it’s just a way of like we are people that think

58:34

about aesthetics think about life think about these things are not separate when we look at these institutions we

58:41

cite we see them doing harm to us we see that they are dictating what kind

58:47

of relationships that they’re mediating our relationships to each other so that you need a place like the whitney to

58:54

invite five people so you can meet the four other people that you wanted to talk to

58:59

and then they put their brand on and then they mitigate what kind what kind of outcome can come out of it that’s kind

59:07

of one aspect of why the art system becomes important of course it’s it’s very tangible in the

59:14

sense that you can talk about capitalism all you want but how can you exceptionalize the art system from capitalism

59:20

if you’re talking about anti-capitalism so then what does it mean to make art that is anti-capitalist

59:26

all of these things are questions we don’t offer answers but these psy these places create a problem for us

59:34

and you can’t just ignore it there’s an ethical responsibility to not ignore the questions that are being

59:40

raised so this center fold is telling us how we’ve moved so far from 2000 from

59:47

before 2016 through the city from museums

59:53

to galleries to the streets back to um different other places that maybe are

1:00:01

not on the map

1:00:06

um does anybody want to get us started on the whitney

1:00:12

yeah i can get started on the whitney um so uh thanksgiving

1:00:20

2018 um uh trump ordered tear gas to be

1:00:27

launched against the migrant caravans crossing um from mexico to the u.s via tijuana

1:00:34

um pictures of um this tear gas as you know we we’ve all

1:00:40

seen those images um along with the kind of typical uh

1:00:47

traumatic images that we’re circulating images of the actual tear gas canisters were also circulating um

1:00:53

which were immediately linked to safariland um or a subsidiary of safariland

1:01:02

which was which is owned by warren kanders who at the time was the vice chairman

1:01:08

at the whitney museum um so the organizing actually started from within the museum

1:01:14

with the workers themselves specifically um from you know ground staff um front of house workers

1:01:21

cafe workers a lot of black and brown folks um who put their jobs on the line for this and it was i believe it was

1:01:28

about 120 130 workers who signed this letter demanding

1:01:33

warren kander’s removal um as just one demand but really kind of um asking for um

1:01:41

a rearrangement of the structure of the museum itself um in terms of transparency um

1:01:49

you know for example warren kander’s also sold millions of dollars worth of

1:01:55

uh his weapons that that uh safariland manufactures to the nypd um a few years ago

1:02:03

so you know uh essentially these workers were were realizing that

1:02:08

some of the same um weapons um or even um the the police officers who trained

1:02:16

with warren kander’s company um you know so at work they were working under the guy

1:02:21

who was supplying the weapons or the police training for them at home and um that that became

1:02:29

problematic for them um but not just tijuana in new york city but also

1:02:34

standing rock and puerto rico and uh palestine and uh turkey and egypt and

1:02:41

kashmir and all these places this tear gas was along with rubber bullets and other

1:02:47

weapons were being used so in december 2018

1:02:54

um decolonized this place um the american indian community house

1:02:59

um amongst others went to the museum in solidarity with the workers to demand canada’s removal as the start

1:03:07

of the decolonization process at the museum um um

1:03:12

you know um the rick from the american indian uh community house made it plain plain

1:03:18

and simple that tear gas is poison and sage’s medicine um and with that

1:03:24

we uh lit several bundles of sage on fire and put them in cauldrons and set them

1:03:31

around the circle that you see in the bottom left photo and fill the museum of smoke um

1:03:41

you know the smoke so this is so you know visually or even sonically

1:03:47

perhaps you can only you know deoccupy a space so much but the smell of smoke actually

1:03:55

went further than even the sound even the sonic the occupation of the museum

1:04:02

um people on the top floors were reporting that they were smelling smoke it caused people to come down um and

1:04:08

then it’s just not pictured here is the balcony at the whitney um that you can stand on once you’ve paid

1:04:14

for your ticket and you’ve been checked in and people just kind of like looking over the

1:04:20

balcony like what the hell is happening here um the fire department was called um

1:04:27

it was a whole thing um and in the museum it was radio silent from the part of the museum

1:04:32

um uh the only thing that really came out was at adam weinberg i believe his name is uh in

1:04:39

support of of you know candors in the museum so then um in 2019 starting on march 22nd 2019

1:04:48

we launched nine weeks of art in action um against the museums

1:04:54

where we started from tear gas and made the case for decolonization over a nine week span

1:05:00

each week a different group bottom lined um what would happen from within our

1:05:06

lifetime which is the palestinian um uh youth group um

1:05:12

you know making connections to the tear gas and the rubber bullets that are used against palestinians in the

1:05:20

great march return every friday um recognizing all the modders

1:05:25

um doing dubka uh in in the lobby or if it was puerto rico

1:05:31

um talking about um this was um actually runs parallel to when puerto

1:05:38

ricans on the island were trying to get rid of um trying to oust that their governor at

1:05:43

the time um you know different groups like that and then on the ninth week we started in the museum but we

1:05:50

ended in front of warren kander’s house uh we went to his house we marched there

1:05:55

um and uh you know uh demanded that that he

1:06:02

leave really um and actually the same day that the puerto

1:06:07

rican governor resigned at the end of july 2019 uh

1:06:13

so did warren candace and that was a huge victory for folks

1:06:18

um and even since then i think that uh you know he’s gone to uh

1:06:26

uh i you know his company is somehow divested or something from uh

1:06:32

one of these weapons but i’m not quite sure the specifics of that but you know it was a little victory um you

1:06:38

know for all the for all the [ __ ] that we get on a day-to-day basis um yeah so this just shows the timeline

1:06:46

um um for for the whitney um after

1:06:54

kander’s resigns we then um uh start talking about what the after

1:07:00

candors moment looks like um again highlighting this demand for decolonization

1:07:06

and we held a citywide town hall for like what is the after canvas moment

1:07:12

um and yeah from there a lot of

1:07:17

you know we kind of went out into the world a lot of different things blossomed but one thing was our pivot to the city

1:07:24

um where um multiple things started happening kind of all at once including

1:07:30

you know the american museum of natural history um the anti-columbus day tours that uh

1:07:36

natasha went over before uh the fourth one instead of going into the museum

1:07:41

we focused on the city we did a tour of the city um uh you know starting at amanh going

1:07:47

through um central park with seneca village um um uh obelisk

1:07:55

yes the obelisk going through all these sites talking about anti-capitalism anti-imperialism

1:08:01

um and then ending at the met the metropolitan museum of art and all

1:08:07

of its [ __ ] um but yeah

1:08:14

that was the best word actually i thought about it and that was the best word um yeah i think i’ll just just few

1:08:22

points to add and if others have any other points that they would like to add on the whitney please jump in i mean one of the other things was that

1:08:28

you know it was actually the week uh week ninth action the week eight action right which was

1:08:34

the anti-gentrification action that started from uh you know east new york and all the

1:08:40

way up until the whitney which you know where different gentrification groups kind of hopped onto the subway and might check

1:08:45

like how these different kind of neighborhoods are actually connected to how whitney has been gentrifying right

1:08:50

whitney gentrified uh chelsea you know galleries moved into chinatown so chinatown

1:08:56

brigade started that day at three in the afternoon you know kind of talk actually on the last day talking about

1:09:01

how you know a lot of the gentrifications actually taking place because of these art galleries and then how it kind of filters into brooklyn

1:09:08

and that you know and gentrification directly connect to also police brutality and we were seeing this kind of like

1:09:14

hike in mta affairs and like people hopping trans and then police violence inside the subways and so

1:09:19

it was an automatic pivot between the museum and and the city in that way but also i think one of the most

1:09:25

important things about the whitney was that um the organizing and came from more a movement place versus thinking of

1:09:31

let’s change whitney as an art institution right the groups that were involved you know a lot of them had not even ever

1:09:37

cared about the whitney right and not not even stepped foot in the whitney before um and so i

1:09:42

think that was really important because you know i think like for the kind of movement context and i think in general

1:09:47

overall you see that a lot of the board members you know who are you know sitting on the

1:09:52

top of these museums they are responsible for violence is happening in the city the institution is

1:09:57

in but also elsewhere right so then how can we leverage that as artists or like how can

1:10:02

as artists you know i’m saying artists because i’m i i you know in some ways might still think of myself as an artist uh

1:10:09

but you know thinkers writers curators or like if we are holding these spaces how are we kind of part of the

1:10:15

contradiction um i think one of the really important parts i think that we were trying to bring about with the whitney which kind

1:10:21

of you know uh was that there is no idea of purity it’s not about purity as much as

1:10:27

like yes we’re all part of these institutions in some ways we’re either teachers or we like you know these institutions give us our

1:10:33

livelihood but that doesn’t mean that we can’t go against them and i think you know i think fred says it really

1:10:39

well uh you know where it’s like you know you could be a university professor and still want to abolish the

1:10:45

university you can be an artist and still want to abolish the art institution you know you can be a curator and not

1:10:51

want to abolish the gallery right and i think these are important contradictions um that we need to hash out uh because

1:10:57

there isn’t this line of like oh because there’s you know organizing going around this institution therefore

1:11:03

the artists need to boycott we are way beyond that and that’s why i think this terminology of like strike as we will go into later is more

1:11:10

relevant because we’re all at this point complicit but we also need to find our agency

1:11:16

right which is in this and find us friends together um and then one last thing i would say about the whitney i think for

1:11:22

for you know for a lot of people it was much easier for them to understand why they colonize american museum

1:11:28

natural history or something like the brooklyn museum because it’s very clear there’s artifacts there’s plundered objects

1:11:33

the whitney does not have any plundered objects they just have art and so how is contemporary art colonial

1:11:39

um in any way and i think like with the board members of course you can that’s an easy pointing but once again

1:11:45

if you think about how the institution operates in its day-to-day it is a settler institution in and out like you know getting like a

1:11:52

biennial which is mostly diverse is not going to fix the problem right or getting you know curators of color

1:11:58

or having a director of color you know that’s not going to fix you know the problem these institutions

1:12:03

are going through and we really need to completely rethink how we think about curation art and gut the whole thing out

1:12:10

and like maybe you know something else needs to come from there but like it’s enough do you think anything you know and not

1:12:16

that you know not that these things need to like it’s great that you know institutions are thinking about diversity but i’m also tired of

1:12:23

diversity equity inclusion statements that further become just talking points for press releases and like points to the

1:12:29

media look we have a long history of amazingness and look we have diversified our institution

1:12:34

but the power still holds in the same settler ship and as long as you know we don’t start

1:12:40

centering then water and air and as long as we don’t think about the deaths that we owe each other or the

1:12:45

histories this [ __ ] is not gonna get resolved it’s gonna keep coming back it’s going to keep blowing up in our faces

1:12:51

and we have to think about and i think there was a question about relationality it’s not just about relationality in

1:12:56

terms of the people you know or as like you know individuals how we relate to each other it’s also relationality the land that

1:13:01

we’re on to the to you know like climate change is a whole other [ __ ] show that these institutions are part of like i mean

1:13:07

what’s his name larry fink he’s on the board of moma and like he’s burning the amazon nobody gives a [ __ ] about that

1:13:13

apparently but you know like that’s what that’s what we’re talking about this violence is enacted within these institutions

1:13:18

on a day-to-day basis and we as artists or or curators or art historians are part of kind of benefiting from that

1:13:24

system so how can we also change it right and i think like one last thing i would say which also i

1:13:30

heard from fred was like you know and you know slavery ended because it was not you know the the colonizers that said

1:13:36

that we need to end slavery right or like uh you know people got independence not because the colonizers were like oh

1:13:43

we had to fight for it right and so why are our institutions or universities any different

1:13:48

it is going to be the students and professors and it is going to be the artist and it is going to be the curators and it is going to be the art

1:13:54

experience it is going to be us who is going to change the way what art means and for us like i think

1:14:00

you know specifically it’s really important to think of how art can become as a space of century

1:14:05

where you know we can take refuge from the [ __ ] show that exists outside because we’re all so tired and you know

1:14:11

it’s not about like my my country and my my village needs to be represented on the wall of the

1:14:17

institution the whole god damn thing needs to change um yeah does anybody else want to talk

1:14:23

about food foundation i just wanted to say one more thing about the whitney not to digress because

1:14:29

i think you were into some really good stuff right there but i think the whitney was also like strategic

1:14:35

and a learning thing for us in terms of how we dealt with the the workers inside the museum

1:14:42

every day every friday when we showed up you know uh in the past actions we usually had

1:14:48

some kind of communication with the frontline workers people front of house to let them know

1:14:54

what we were doing why we were there understanding that we were probably making their day more creating more work for them that

1:15:01

day and so forth but i think that whitney we really upped our game in the terms of like we showed up with food we really won

1:15:09

every single person in that museum over that was front of house and

1:15:14

and and people that would come in um you know we were we were showing up it was free friday

1:15:21

so people would stand in line coming from all different places and people would be upset when they saw

1:15:26

us and they would be go to the security and want the security to make us leave

1:15:32

and security was kind of like we had already won them over so to speak they were you know they were kind of like on our

1:15:38

side understanding exactly why we were there and how they also benefited from what we were talking

1:15:44

about so i just wanted to throw that out there because yeah and just to add you know like i think there was a point when they like the whitney documented

1:15:51

all these actions and they actually like 20 years later they’re going to do like you know what was it the untold history

1:15:57

of protest show that they did they want to do another one and all these videos are going to show up but you know in the beginning we had a

1:16:02

situation where for you know the guy wouldn’t even we weren’t even allowed to go up to take a picture but at the end of it the guy was taking our phones and

1:16:08

like taking pictures and like you know this is people like you know it it didn’t really feel um like you know there was that much uh

1:16:16

hostility in terms of you know like you know work um yeah anyways

1:16:21

i think even even how we had built over the course of nine weeks our relationship with the security details

1:16:28

and how we were able to negotiate and leverage what we were doing and how we were you

1:16:34

know we kind of kept pushing things forward every week and they kind of backed up every week

1:16:39

you know and just kind of like let things unfold so i think strategically we had learned some stuff from the

1:16:45

guggenheim and the brooklyn museum and amonh and we kind of like you know we really

1:16:51

saw it blossom while the nine weeks were happening at the whitney i think the ford foundation

1:17:03

is is an important player in all of this i think that when you take seriously that you know these

1:17:10

institutions are sites of struggle and that we’re interested in getting free and the role of aesthetics

1:17:16

and all of that and how do we kind of build the relationships of the other

1:17:21

world we want to see now you um you need to make

1:17:27

the walls and look the glass invisible right these are separations so like

1:17:33

glass is meant to kind of make the inside be part of the outside let’s say or not so much separation but

1:17:39

these institutions and their ideology and economy separate us and even within an institution people are isolated and

1:17:46

separated this department that department the other department once you once you show up

1:17:54

right it creates it creates it well it challenges the separations

1:18:01

right and i think that this picture on the upper left corner of the ford foundation from the inside

1:18:07

that is in solidarity so these are ford foundation employees on the inside

1:18:17

delivering the message of no new jails in relation to the people that gathered

1:18:22

outside this is a crisis for an institution

1:18:27

right this is a crisis for an employer this is a crisis for how things are set up

1:18:33

and it doesn’t take much you just got to show up with the right politics and you have to be able to recognize

1:18:40

that these separations need to be challenged in all sorts of ways and i think that

1:18:46

that’s the idea that’s one of the tactics of how we become ungovernable right

1:18:53

um so this comes on the heels of like this recognition that we’ve built enough

1:19:00

relations and power to act in the city and it was time to do that

1:19:07

because our collaborators asked us to and and this was around the subway

1:19:13

increase of police in the subway stations the introduction of omni

1:19:20

which is this electronic way of you know form of surveillance uh they have

1:19:25

relationships to the military-industrial complex it also is a class issue because now in

1:19:31

the subways with the omni if you don’t have that kind of technology like a card or something then

1:19:38

you won’t be able to enter or be more difficult so picking that up and working with others we took

1:19:46

the notions of diversity of tactics diversity of aesthetics diversity of like how do we

1:19:52

organize differently in the city like how does the multitude get organized and what does it look like and you know

1:19:59

these were around ftp after the ford foundation where it’s just like [ __ ] the police

1:20:06

[ __ ] the police ftp in all the ways um but that’s kind of my intro to these slides

1:20:12

also uh you know this wasn’t once again this is not just the work of dtp there are groups like my accountability take

1:20:18

back the bronx who are forward to this uh organizing um

1:20:23

does anybody want to add anything and ftp not you know fight the patriarchy fight the power feed the people feed the people

1:20:30

uh you know there’s endless you know fight the pipelines no [ __ ] the pipelines there’s a whole poster

1:20:37

around that um we should have put that poster in this manual

1:20:42

i’m surprised it’s not here um anybody else wants to go on this or mars um i eat

1:20:49

yeah um actually i thought this poster wasn’t this way anyways it’s not yeah i thought so too

1:20:57

i was like i was like what but okay so i just want to take an um you know a

1:21:04

note on the organizing behind ftp and kind of just like um

1:21:12

you know uh what does dismantling patriarchy look like um in in within the

1:21:18

organizing and why and so essentially we were

1:21:23

a lot of us were gathered um uh actually at crystal’s birthday party um in 2019

1:21:33

2019 um 2019 and you know a few of our friends from

1:21:39

take back the bronx and why accountability um hit us up around these videos that had went viral of

1:21:46

police officers abusing um young black children in the subway in one

1:21:53

video you have like 10 cops um all pointing their guns

1:21:59

into the train car at a 19 year old um child

1:22:06

boy um because he hopped the turnstile and didn’t have 275

1:22:12

to pay fair and they almost ended his life then the train car doors opened they rushed

1:22:18

him and um piled on top of him this video went viral another video is cops and this time with

1:22:25

i believe 15 year old um uh children probably after school

1:22:31

or or you know some sort of activity and the cops literally punching the kids right um so i think that

1:22:39

you know um you know and maybe i’m also saying this because

1:22:45

so much of what we associate movement work to be is like oh

1:22:50

like some man you know like the aesthetics of it or something you think like some man or is behind this

1:22:55

or something and this goes back to like you know everything always gets dumped on a mean right it’s

1:23:01

like it’s like anything can i i could go do something crazy and it would be like

1:23:06

where was i mean when this happened you know so shout out to me but um

1:23:13

there was just nothing but women a lot of black brown indigenous queer women

1:23:20

for ftp and a few dudes who who were riding along too but like

1:23:26

that’s what people don’t get it’s like ftp was nothing but the care the care that i

1:23:34

had for asian for example the the 19 year old boy who came to the action the ftp one the care i had

1:23:42

when i see black children um um um being abused on the subway platforms the

1:23:48

care that i have this like this i don’t you know

1:23:53

it it’s it’s not rooted in patriarchy i know that i don’t know if i want to call it a feminine care

1:23:59

or motherly care i you know something that i have the care that ftp moved with i believe

1:24:06

is something that dismantles some of the violence that is that patriarchy does on a day-to-day

1:24:12

basis um whether it was the care for jail support

1:24:18

um you know like you know if you you know if you you’ve been to actions where arrests have happened you’ve been to

1:24:24

jail support but these were some of the most lit gel supports i’m talking like

1:24:29

you know what i mean like just lit jealous music chanting food upon food upon food

1:24:36

anything you need you get out of jail you want a cigarette here is a cigarette where’d they do that

1:24:41

at y’all i don’t know but it was care okay i’m talking care where

1:24:46

the black women and this gets to the question that was posed earlier um care where the black women of ftp

1:24:54

got together um to watch the color purple um it came back to theaters for its what

1:25:02

anniversary do you remember like 50th some you know some grand anniversary and all of us

1:25:09

like met 30th 30th and i was like reading that

1:25:16

backwards i was like third that doesn’t seem but we all went and met in manhattan not for an

1:25:22

action but to go to the movies and i you know i’m walking up and i see

1:25:27

take back the wrong folks from take back the bronx and white accountability and every time i see them usually someone’s

1:25:32

about to get arrested but that day we were just kicking it and that’s the type of care that i think

1:25:40

our movements need um and the type of care that we should be moving with so you know [ __ ] the police for sure but um

1:25:48

also feel the power and [ __ ] the patriarchy

1:25:57

it’s a good poster to come to that [Laughter]

1:26:04

yeah um i think this is a good poster for that um kyle do you want to say anything on

1:26:11

the posters or in general a meme anybody wants to say anything about these posters and i think

1:26:16

we can yeah why don’t you go for it this is kind of some of what i was

1:26:22

talking about earlier where we’re you know activating archives that these things aren’t off limits to us

1:26:29

they don’t exist in the past but they’re living breathing things that can still function in today’s

1:26:34

movement work um yeah and not about ownership really just

1:26:42

about building and creating something that can keep pushing this [ __ ] forward

1:26:47

and documenting the work we’re doing and others are doing one of the questions that always comes

1:26:54

up in this kind of work is like well two questions but i think the first

1:27:01

one is well well how do you how do you make all this happen right because we we we print out a lot we give a lot of

1:27:08

beautiful things for people for free right without cost

1:27:14

and i think that it’s important to note that we don’t

1:27:20

we don’t apply for anything we don’t apply for grants we don’t we don’t explain ourselves to anyone and

1:27:27

so in the type of work that we do in these posters sometimes it’s like from you know from

1:27:33

talking gigs that we put the money in and we and then we put it out through content right uh through

1:27:41

relationships that we have at the university where some would call that stealing and for us it’s just like

1:27:48

you know reclaiming but also not just reclaiming for us reclaiming for this

1:27:54

struggle in order to get free and i mentioned this as a way to think about

1:28:01

like how you know the problem with applying for grants is that becomes

1:28:06

all your time is applying for [ __ ] then it’s trying to translate it to people in such a way that it’s palpable right

1:28:14

and then you forget why you’re doing the [ __ ] to begin with and i think that it’s important to

1:28:19

figure out how you remain autonomous in the work and needing needing money to do your

1:28:26

work um you know is is a problem

1:28:31

for all of us and so what i’m suggesting here is like at least from decolonizes places

1:28:37

standpoint you know this show for example at golf we used it to make a manual what’s on

1:28:44

the walls the images that you you know the slides that you see printed large

1:28:49

and then what else did the money go to printing out the z and then for people to take it and

1:28:56

then for people to use it right so so this idea of like our own economies

1:29:02

can be developed in the midst of all of this not in any pure way but it’s always a negotiated engagement

1:29:09

of does it make sense or does it not make sense and how do you measure well it’s depending on where do you want to

1:29:14

go and what you’re doing and what are you what political project you’re on aesthetics on its own won’t tell you

1:29:22

how to figure that out so i think a lot of artists needs to also kind of

1:29:28

sit with and our historian every one of our peers and friends and and family need to kind of sit with

1:29:34

why are you doing what you’re doing because it isn’t apparently clear

1:29:40

does it make sense to do a certain artwork around a topic when it’s part of an overall

1:29:47

structure and the people that are paying you is the ford foundation that made sure

1:29:53

jails get built again it’s not so much that there’s an

1:30:00

answer to this it’s just like one of the ways in which we do it is we make t-shirts you know we we

1:30:07

you know some people who don’t have money get the t-shirts many people who have money get the

1:30:13

t-shirts and pay that money goes back into the work that we’re doing or the money that we got from golf for

1:30:19

example is all going into organizing and like you know apart from the stipends

1:30:27

and then there’s a different economy that emerges because we have money for stipends and we’ve offered people let’s say

1:30:34

in the fur in the three or four talks and many people you know some people took some people

1:30:39

didn’t some people said hey give it to this thing some people said keep it and use it right so so in this process of being

1:30:47

open to other relationships produce other economies

1:30:56

um i feel like we’re in the mid-ear once again going back to i can’t believe we made this manual with

1:31:02

the beginning um of the year i think one thing that i would point out i think you know

1:31:07

since ftp happened it was like the last thing it was january 31st of 2020

1:31:12

um and then you know there was another one that happened while during the pandemic but then the pandemic came right and it was like

1:31:19

uh you know we like a lot of reorientation had to happen but at the same time

1:31:24

uh to no surprise like you know the kind of inequalities that already existed were further

1:31:29

kind of exaggerated right so i mean if you think about essential workers anywhere

1:31:34

not just new york city i mean essential workers is a conversation everywhere it’s you know it’s who sustains the city

1:31:40

and most of the time it’s immigrants or you know uh you know black folks or you know latin x folks and you see that in new

1:31:46

york city but also like you know i’m in india it’s a similar situation it’s you know migrant workers from villages you know people who who do the

1:31:52

dirty work of society right um that’s really uh you know who got hit once again

1:31:58

the most and so for us i think we started to kind of realign and then you know there was a question asked for

1:32:03

around counter insurgency you know one of the things that happened with you know with ftp but also overall

1:32:09

uh you know at that point in the movement is we saw you know a lot of counter insurgency

1:32:15

uh being happened through ngos and ngo organizers uh coming into the movement space and so

1:32:20

what we also saw was that a lot of rhetoric of like you know uh you know movement being used but

1:32:26

actually you know still you know points towards the idea of assimilation back into the institution

1:32:32

and i mean in some ways you know at this point you know if you start thinking about counterinsurgency counter insurgency is anything

1:32:38

which you know is trying to keep the same status go valid and you don’t even need to be paid by

1:32:44

the state to do that at this point right and and so you re you you really at this point you know where

1:32:50

counter insurgency just means like not being you know in being able to imagine a future

1:32:55

which you know can exist after dismantling these or or on the ruins of these institutions

1:33:00

and so at this point i would say counterinsurgency isn’t just a state-run mechanism it’s anybody who believes

1:33:06

that you know that system can be reformed and and you know and can still take care of people and so

1:33:12

i think you don’t need i mean at this point you have individuals um who are part of kind of thinking through that and i think

1:33:18

that’s why the relational work then becomes really important and so uh you know this was a communique

1:33:24

that we kind of started you know and this is also the beginning of the manual where we’re thinking about study in action uh for a new year uh

1:33:32

like what does you know thinking about movement you know thinks about i mean i’ll just read it out from this you know dtp has

1:33:39

in recent years served as a catalyst for anti-colonial anti-racist and anti-capitalist tendencies that have

1:33:44

now begun to course their way through the elite cultural institutions likewise the early ftp

1:33:50

actions uh of which we were apart helped to pave the way for the long hard summit uprising this

1:33:55

is you know when george floyd stuff happened some of our favorite museums however were a little too hasty in declaring

1:34:01

that black lives matter while doing little else decolonization after all requires some

1:34:06

effort beyond committees for diversity inclusion and equity that aim to adjust demographics while leaving structures of

1:34:13

power wealth and property intact um the managers of the art system should be on notice in 2021 there is no return

1:34:19

to normal um i think that that’s uh i think as we are in 2021 it becomes you

1:34:26

know more clear as we i think we should talk about strike mumma now um our work this year uh you know we’ll reflect and embody the

1:34:33

lessons of 2020 we will deepen our organizing and scales of the neighborhood and the city etc and then i think the other

1:34:39

thing that was happening you know around thinking about uh anti-imperialism is you know we always have to especially if you’re in

1:34:45

the empire uh you know it’s always very important to learn from struggles that are happening you know outside of the united states so

1:34:52

therefore puerto rico palestine sudan uh you know now dominican republic

1:34:58

punjab they become important sites of struggle to kind of learn from and so on the right you have you know these are punjabi

1:35:04

farmers you know and now now it’s not just from punjab but also you know all over india have been sitting at the border uh

1:35:11

you know of delhi since uh november you know um of 2020

1:35:16

basically uh you know in in in a form of resisting uh you know occupation of their land

1:35:22

basically you know uh the government has now is working through these bills which will allow them to be able to lease their lands and

1:35:28

it’s been basically going against you know capitalist companies which are operated on the international scale

1:35:34

so really capitalist control of land and you know kind of resisting that but i think the point that uh you know

1:35:39

mars brought up about craig care and relationality you see that in these d occupations you know like eating food

1:35:46

together cooking food uh you know is part of being a warrior in like you know in sick communities for

1:35:51

example the kind of uh you know places are built on that to be able to eat together as you resist

1:35:56

to be able to grow your own food to be able to have a life you know where you understand where your milk your water

1:36:02

here all of these things are coming from and you know in some ways i think then it’s really important to focus that when

1:36:07

we talk about these struggles be it even in the museum be it even in the city they’re really to protect a way of life

1:36:13

right they’re really to protect the way of life that we’ve been living uh which gets taken you know over and

1:36:18

over again through capitalism and through racial capitalism and so you know just kind of highlighting once again to what

1:36:24

collective care looks like um and how we can hold each other while resisting which which is i think

1:36:29

extremely important um anybody else wants to uh add amy you

1:36:35

want to add anything i mean yeah can you go to the very end where the note is um and just kind of

1:36:42

read yes this is you know an action okay yep

1:36:48

no i’m just saying the last the note the editorial note uh amy do you want to read it or do you

1:36:55

wanna i don’t have it pulled up it’s a little

1:37:02

okay the work reflected the work reflected in these pages condensing years helps us breed

1:37:08

it is only possible because of the deep politics of friendship and ethos of relational organizing and a

1:37:14

strong belief that not only do things not have to be this way but in fact we must live as if

1:37:19

it could be a different different based on what we choose to do and how we choose to live this work is also the product of many

1:37:26

people colleagues comrades participants family members lovers friends and grassroots groups we thank all those who put in the time

1:37:33

and love to usher something powerful and beautiful into the world and to hold space for each other we also

1:37:38

thank those who use their camera social media wrote took pictures made videos brought family and friends and organized

1:37:44

movement generated anything is always better if any image should have been credited and we did not be apologize in

1:37:50

advance as it was not intentional finally for all those who wonder about wins as a metric of success

1:37:56

we share we walk we do not run because we are going very far decolonize this place

1:38:04

um and then i think i have a banger to kind

1:38:10

of end this thing on i found the poster

1:38:19

uh so that was a good poster um and then you know i think uh we can uh

1:38:25

you know end soon uh if any i don’t know if there’s any questions i stopped looking at the chat

1:38:30

um but i would just say you know since uh since you know since then um you know

1:38:36

vsd colonized this place have been one of the people who are part of uh the strike moment working group

1:38:42

uh you know and you can go check out the website does anybody else want to talk about it maybe maybe you can get us started and

1:38:48

then i mean you can add and then we can add going about it but um it’s also worth thinking whether we

1:38:54

should screen ariella’s video oh yeah i think we can figure it out yeah if there’s questions we can screen

1:39:01

aurella’s video too but i think yeah i just you know just to get us started i think uh you know um one of the things that was

1:39:08

important like you know this is the the i think there’s it’s a lot on people’s mind like how is track more

1:39:14

more different from you know dtp i think it’s important to mention that gtp is one of the people

1:39:19

who’ve been part of like you know this struggle around institutions in the city overall and to strike moma in some ways it

1:39:25

facilitates those relationships together and then come you know as as as a working group around

1:39:31

that and so it includes gtp but it also includes the relations that everybody has built you know through

1:39:37

these times uh in the city and then uh you know one last thing i would say is it also incorporates the

1:39:42

kind of failures of of the organizing around whitney where people very quickly went back to being

1:39:48

like oh if we had better board members our institutions will be fixed right this is why

1:39:53

you know the organizing is really based around this idea of post-moma futures that if you’re thinking about

1:39:58

decolonization and abolition it needs to start today it’s not something which is sanctioned by the institution

1:40:04

and hence we have to think about the futures now and they’re part of the organizing and

1:40:09

so a lot of the work that’s happening with you know strike momota organizing it’s part of the kind of weeks that kind of

1:40:14

come together um okay i’m handing it off if you guys want me to pull up something around this

1:40:22

amy um maybe i’ll just add um

1:40:30

so just yesterday was the beginning of our week three of this 10-week art

1:40:36

action and communication and where like people are thinking about how to strike momo and

1:40:42

also right when we talk about strike mode we’re talking about beyond moma as well

1:40:47

right it’s not just about one institution it’s not just about one board member it’s about a whole

1:40:53

like structure right that allows these institutions to exist the way that they

1:40:58

are like um and so uh yesterday was week three i mean it’s

1:41:05

worth going through uh the different contributions that people have sent in i think this is where we could probably play

1:41:12

um ariella’s video but um yeah like from here to the dominican

1:41:18

republic like people all over the place um are like acting and thinking about how

1:41:25

to strike right and in every way is possible using a diversity of aesthetics and a

1:41:31

diversity of tactics and platforms right we have like a pop-up deoccupation that happens right

1:41:38

across from moma but at the same time there’s also digital platforms additional spaces for people to organize who are

1:41:46

not in new york or not even in the us right so um

1:41:51

like there’s different ways people are acting and i think this is like a good time to

1:41:57

right this is the time to begin to think about what a post modern future

1:42:03

looks like post moma future looks like oh post modern future as well like you know like um all

1:42:08

of that so um yeah

1:42:16

should i just play the video uh this is you know since we’re talking about gtp dtp’s contribution was in week three was

1:42:22

to kind of point towards the kind of connections between the new york police foundation and moma

1:42:27

and so you know you have board members i think who like you know keeps the foundation fed it was also founded by

1:42:32

the ford foundation uh the new york police city at the new york city foundation and then you also have you know uh alice

1:42:40

kish who is like board of trustees or moma her brother-in-law is part of you know the new york police foundation

1:42:46

and so you see once again you know these are connected in that way and so we’re going to be participating with strike moma in the ruins of

1:42:53

modernity tour which is going to happen this friday for folks who are in new york city um they’re encouraged to join it’s going to

1:42:59

begin at columbus circle at 3 p.m and then end at the institution um and then also this thursday we’re

1:43:05

going to be part of a conversation with you know uh nobody but like you know there’s a conversation going to be

1:43:11

um held with ariella zulei delaysia foreman and charlene rodriguez on modernity as an imperial crime and it’s

1:43:19

actually related to uh modernity is an imperial crime working group that ariella is um the the facilitator for

1:43:27

and so what we could do is maybe play this video for that um let me just stop sharing make sure

1:43:32

that i had the sound on is there any questions that we should uh think about before

1:43:39

were there any questions no okay

1:43:57

did the video go no i should probably play it hold on i want to stop share

1:44:04

make this full screen

1:44:25

modernity is an imperial crime outlines for a working group

1:44:33

with the abolition of slavery looted objects had to be disowned and restituted

1:44:39

to the people from whom they were taken but they were not restituted

1:44:46

these objects were stolen from all over africa plunder was pursued as collection

1:44:55

plundered objects were held in museums as works of art people were stolen from africa and held

1:45:03

implantations as slaves works of art the ultimate form of private property

1:45:11

was programmed to benefit looters are descendants and allies

1:45:19

here is randy taylor ancestor of tamara lanier he was kidnapped from congo he sees

1:45:26

daguerreotype ceased by agassiz zilli and other enslavers and overseers

1:45:33

considered as the private property of the peabody museum in harvard university

1:45:39

is still held by these institutions

1:45:45

in 1860s following the departure of slaves from the plantations

1:45:50

and the general strike they led slavery was abolished

1:45:56

however former slaves did not receive reparations

1:46:02

and they were denied the right to be reunited with their objects their objects are still held in

1:46:11

white institutions museums museums of modern art played a

1:46:17

major role in preventing this reunion from happening

1:46:22

with the abolition of slavery not only museums were not abolished

1:46:28

many museums were created normalizing the plunder and making such reunion difficult to

1:46:36

imagine in other words as an institution

1:46:41

the museum of modern art exercises and onto epistemological violence

1:46:47

it dissociates looted objects from their people and turns these objects into the

1:46:54

national heritage of the looters and their descendants descendants

1:47:00

knowledge of these objects turned into the realm of expertise of white people

1:47:07

the accumulation preservation care and display of plundered objects

1:47:12

are part of an organized crime carried against non-white cultures

1:47:18

[Music] for that modernity was invented it normalizes the separation between the

1:47:25

tenses past present and future and relegates imperial crimes to the past

1:47:34

while modern art is the outcome of plunder the category of modern functions as alibi

1:47:42

[Music] museums were invented to keep people and objects apart

1:47:51

here at the moma plundered objects displayed for customs inspection before the installation of the black art

1:47:58

exhibition in 1936 the persona of the modern artist was

1:48:04

also invented alongside the homicide when the modern artist’s

1:48:10

eye landed on these plundered objects their market value increased

1:48:17

the question should be repeated to whom do these objects belong

1:48:25

the museum operates as a wedge between people and their plundered objects hence

1:48:31

the museum can reply they belong to the museum

1:48:37

and learning this anti-epistemological violence exercised by the museum of modern art

1:48:44

requires a potential history of this institution

1:48:50

using the institutions self-documentation of its crimes

1:48:55

their archives are our receipts

1:49:00

these well-documented plundered objects often catalogued by region and style

1:49:08

and kidnapped people came from the same places

1:49:15

the museum obstructs the recognition of black people as those whose rights are inscribed in

1:49:21

these plundered objects the abolition of slavery should be

1:49:27

followed by the abolition of the museum the site where plunder continues to be

1:49:33

cultivated as private property cultivated

1:49:39

from the opposite end of the white world a magical black culture was hailing

1:49:46

black sculpture france phenom the museum of modern art

1:49:54

of which mama is an emblematic model owed to be abolished abolished momma

1:50:02

abolish moma means the abolition of the institution that exists in order to keep people

1:50:08

apart from their objects worlds and cosmologies

1:50:14

plunder should be de-institutionalized a practice of repair of the world in

1:50:21

which plunder could have existed for centuries should take over the infrastructure of

1:50:27

the museum of modern art and become its organizing principles

1:50:39

[Music]

1:50:50

pika

1:51:03

um were there any questions

1:51:10

i think we should pass it on to sally [Music]

1:51:17

hi as in wrapping it up i think so you have to leave it too and we’d like

1:51:23

to speak together okay um i don’t know if you got the

1:51:28

messages that i sent to you um no okay um

1:51:34

i guess we could wrap up things i just want to check in with everyone just to make sure that

1:51:39

there’s nothing else that any last or closing thoughts

1:51:48

it’s ongoing work you know i think that the ongoing thought is that strike moma is probably a really

1:51:54

important thing that brings all this together in a way that can allow people to engage

1:52:00

in where they are not that they have to be at moma’s an exercise of kind of control

1:52:07

and gait but but that’s it and i think the website is worth visiting because

1:52:12

whatever contributions people make they get to see so it’s a space of conversation that’s happening aesthetically

1:52:18

real time does anybody want to just take a last

1:52:25

round if anybody wants to this is like the end of our five weeks and your thoughts overall

1:52:30

like half a year that we spent with sally if anybody wants to say anything

1:52:41

well on behalf of the group i will say sally you’re amazing and thank you for the opportunity and

1:52:47

you took a huge risk to invite us um we know that’s not you know so we just want to acknowledge

1:52:54

you and the work that you do and we’re grateful for the opportunity

1:53:00

thank you yeah thank you so much sally and i think i would just say that i think it’s important that

1:53:06

you know that uh institutions you know really everywhere or in general they

1:53:11

just don’t think of you know abolition decolonization and anti-imperialism just in modes of

1:53:17

representation in galleries but really um are able to move beyond you know that and really institute it as

1:53:24

a structural change and you know and and i think one of the things that is really important to highlight is that

1:53:30

it’s not going to come in the form of a policy so get over that it isn’t going to be a policy that’s

1:53:36

going to be handed over to you and have decolonization or abolition it inherently is a process oriented work

1:53:44

and it is going to be part of the process and you know your own history like you know i think that we mentioned in the strike

1:53:50

movement thing that you know your archive are our receipts and i think ariella mentions that in her video as well like you know the

1:53:57

institutions on archive can actually tell you uh how the institution needs to actually operate

1:54:02

today because the past isn’t in the past right it’s part of the present and the future and it’s really important that you know

1:54:08

rather than you know we’ve heard that especially with moma they’re further closing down their archives and you’re seeing that more so than more of the

1:54:14

institutions as they’re realizing oh [ __ ] you’re part of enslavement you know we’re you know and

1:54:20

and you know or like you know stolen like they’re shutting down the archives whereas i think this is time to

1:54:26

really think of that as like its own process of liberation and then seeing what the institution

1:54:31

uh ends up being you know at the end of it and it’s a process and it might be very scary and it might be

1:54:37

one very unsettling but i don’t see that there is a choice outside of it at this point so

1:54:45

yeah thank you sally no um i’m going to do my closing remarks

1:54:52

but i i do want to thank you natasha and amin for agreeing to do this you didn’t get

1:54:58

a ton of lead time but the project has been amazing and i just want to thank dtp collectively for this i know that

1:55:06

working with you all has changed me and kind of called me to task in some of the things that i’m doing so

1:55:12

i really appreciate i really appreciate this yeah you guys are in my heart anyway

1:55:19

enough of the mushy stuff um so this brings us to the end

1:55:24

of the dtp conversation series and all of the individual the five

1:55:29

individual talks can be accessed through the art gallery of guelph website i want to thank everyone who attended

1:55:36

the bi-weekly sessions for their questions and their time i

1:55:41

want to thank the staff at the art gallery of guelph um shawna mccabe jessica gibson

1:55:47

rebecca daggett colin carney jenna brownlow and former agg staffers robin

1:55:53

mckenzie and vern harrison for all of their collective efforts that went towards realizing the various

1:55:59

iterations of this project please continue to follow both the events section on the art gallery of guelph for updates

1:56:06

on the gallery zone programming and decolonize this place website and instagram as well as strikemoment.org

1:56:13

for further updates and information on the group’s activities i want to thank all of the individuals

1:56:20

who joined the dialogues throughout these 10 weeks maria hopfield jason lujan nick ones

1:56:28

chailene rodriguez ben enduga cabullier britney williams and spice jazz kieran

1:56:35

dylan nelson maldonado torres skyler williams erica violet lee mark

1:56:42

ayash chadney desai corey balsam however sorry abu mabka

1:56:51

latonya otri harry burke and natasha dylan amin hussein mars and crystal jupiter

1:56:58

amy wang andre ross yates mckee and kyle gohan collectively you have all reminded

1:57:05

us to quote a name of the debts that we owe to one another and our responsibilities to show up as

1:57:10

informed allies and accomplices and how a commitment to moving forward through an ethos of respect

1:57:17

for the land for the water the air the animals and for each other and with

1:57:23

our eyes ears minds and hearts open is what can and will bring about true

1:57:29

change and transformation whether it’s in the space of the gallery the museum the institutions and beyond so thank you

1:57:38

everyone thank you so much thanks sally

1:57:43

thank you everyone thank you all thank you bye take care okay thanks bye

1:57:53

you

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