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Artworks
IN CONVERSATION: Bayr(y)am Bayr(y)amali & Taras Gembik
21.03.2023
Join us on 21.03.2023 at 7 PM GMT for a live Zoom conversation between Bayr(y)am Bayr(y)amali & Taras Gembik
Join the call: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82803780063
A Movement of MovementsThrough this series of online talks inspired by the concept “A Movement of Movements” emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s aims to explore the global network of movements that share a common goal of promoting social, racial, economic, and environmental justice across geographies. The conversations moderated by Bayr(y)am Bayr(y)amali aims to entangle the interconnected nature of movements and attempt a radical listening approach between organisers to share resources, methodologies and tactics to build a more just and anti-colonial world.
As Movement of Movements is characterised by a decentralised, non-hierarchical structure, and a focus on grassroots organising and direct action, these conversations are not designed on offering advice or solutions, but rather on providing a space for individuals to share their perspectives in order to resist oppressive systems and to build collective power.
As part of the protest group - BP or not BP? - Bayr(y)am has organized environmental movements to demand end of oil sponsorships in cultural organisations. Key value of the group addresses the possibility of creative performance and direct action as vital tools in the struggle for a better world. Through this speculative connectivity of movements and creating networks with other organisers, the series of talks is a creative and performative endeavour to co-create, co-facilitate and sustain solidarity across borders.
As the issue of fossil fuel sponsorship is deeply entwined with issues of colonialism, race, gender, wealth, class and other injustices, the selected presenters are not sorely working on themes of climate justice. However, as climate organising in the minority world has been defined by white-centred voices, solutions and tactics, these discussions have a purpose of radical listening, sharing and liaising with other movements, rather than creating siloed echo-chambers.
Taras Gembik is a cultural worker and performer from Ukraine. Cooperating with the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw as an educator since 2018, he works on the integration of migrants, by providing a platform for them to share their perspectives and experiences within the public program of the Museum. Together with Maria Beburia, he created the BLYZKIST (“closeness”) collective, which focuses on creating a multi-level community of people with experience of migration.
Since July 2021, he has been running the Anti-Crisis Film Club together with the DajHerbate foundation at the Museum of Modern Art for people in a homeless crisis. From the beginning of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, he has been co-creating the “Sunflower” Solidarity Community Center at Pańska Street.
He also works with language and poetry, where he tries to find words to express the inexpressible - the atrocities of war, the experience of refugees and eradication. May what is intimate, immersed in poetry and metaphor, become a form of resistance and an act of discord? Today, poetry demands our memory, anger and solidarity, because in times of war, the critical context and social life of poetry are inseparable. Let’s live together, reorganize words, thoughts and feelings.
Bayr(y)am Mustafa Bayr(y)amali is a London based (Bulgarian)Turkish visual researcher, programmer and organiser. His practice deals with issues of new world (b)orders, il/legal identities in the Balkans and beyond. He is an Education Manager at Magnum Photos - a photography co-operative - and co-runs the Old Mountain Assembly - a programming space for worlding and futuring a transitional and decolonial perspectives in Eastern Europe.
As an organiser, Bay(y)ram is part of the protest group BP or not BP? which aims to end oil sponsoring in cultural institutions and challenge the imperial condition of Western art galleries and museums through advocacy and boycott.
