1. Public Editorial Meetings

          Who is a “People?” Constructions of the “We”

          27–28 February 2015

          Goldsmiths, University of London

          Public Editorial Meeting

          1. About
          2. Images
          3. Program
          4. Video
      1. Friday 27 February 2015

        09.00–09.30 hrs:         Registration, Coffee and Tea 

        09.30–10.00 hrs:         Welcome by Richard Noble and Maria Hlavajova 

        10.00–10.30 hrs:         Introduction by Simon Sheikh into the Construction of "the People" within the Former West condition

        10.30–13.00 hrs:         Panel with Barby Asante, Andrea Phillips, Morgan Quaintance, and Irit Rogoff

        This panel discusses the construction of a “we” in terms of current issues of race in the United Kingdom, with specific reference to the historical and institutional paradigms developed and maintained through contemporary art. At a time of shifting models of institutionalization and funding strategies, and in acknowledgement of the critical influence of London’s cosmopolitical and migratory context, the panel focuses on the embedded exclusions that continue to be performed by and through contemporary art.

        13.00–14.00 hrs:        Lunch Break
        14.00–16.30 hrs:        Panel with Jan Breman, Melissa Gordon, Massimiliano Mollona, and Bev Skeggs

        This panel considers the construction of the people by looking at issues of precarity and class fragmentation from feminist and postcolonial perspectives, while weaving in views from art and political economy. By looking at the generalized condition of dispossession of contemporary capitalism as a form of radical exclusion—but also an avenue towards new possibilities—the panel asks: What are the future forms of class recomposition and collective engagement of the people in contemporary Europe?

        16.30–17.00 hrs:         Coffee and Tea

        17.00–18.00 hrs:          Response by Elvira Dyangani Ose, followed by a discussion moderated by Massimiliano Mollona

      2. Saturday 28 February 2015

        10.00 hrs:                    Registration, Coffee and Tea

        10.30–13.00 hrs:         Panel with Nina Power, Janna Graham, Dave Beech, and Bernadette Buckley, moderated by Simon Sheikh

        Looking at identification and identity, politics and populism, affect and aesthetics, this panel investigates how “a” or “the” people are constructed through both art and politics. What cultural forms and institutions can produce this elusive entity, and how might it be addressed after the reconfiguration of the great divide that was the East/West?

        13.00–14.00 hrs:         Lunch Break

        14.00–15.30 hrs:         Conversation between Rastko Močnik and Boris Buden

        Revisiting Rastko Močnik’s crucial essay “How Much Fascism?,” this conversation examines the surviving forms of twentieth-century fascism in contemporary politics and culture, as well as its growing threat to the existing democratic order.

        15.30–16.00 hrs:         Coffee and Tea

        16.00–17.00 hrs:         Concluding conversation between Tariq Ali and Simon Sheikh

        This conversation and discussion questions the notion of a “former West” itself, asking how such terms can be useful in attempting to understand people and popular movements, while simultaneously looking at alternatives to the current rule of “the Extreme Centre,” as Tariq Ali formulates it in his new book of the same name.

        17.00–18.00 hrs:         Response by Harry Weeks, followed by a discussion moderated by Andrea Phillips