Events

Please join us for a panel discussion on the themes of faith and politics with guests Stephen Duncombe, Zack Exley, Savitri Durkee, and Simon Critchley.

Monday, March 3, 7:30pm, free

It has been said that the contemporary age is one of irony, where Truth and the meta-narrative have been shot through with holes. The collateral damage could be characterized as a crisis of meaning – one that is filled by the rise of fundamentalism and the creed of consumerism. We see the polarization of our population – the red state, blue state divide is decreed by pundits and pollsters to be more accurately a divide between those who believe and those who do not.

Where the Right makes universal claims, the Left takes a critical position, aiming to reveal an irrational or intolerant opponent. Faith, advertising and political spectacle are treated as mythologies to dismantle. While the dogma of fundamentalism and the Right’s fictionalizing are legitimately problematic, the implications of this reactionary focus are as well…

What are the casualties of the Left’s critiques? Is there a redemptive value to fundamentalism? Is there a way beyond this deadlock that addresses the pitfalls of dogma and those of distanced irony? What could a religion for disbelievers look like, and why could this be important?

The Change You Want To See Gallery hosts a panel discussion exploring these themes with guests:

Please join us for two evenings dedicated to the G8 mobilizations in Germany (2007) and Japan (2008) by artists and organizers involved in the events. Presenters include Not An Alternative, Hate The G8 Action Faction, Go Hirasawa and Sabu Kohso of Japan's No! G8 Action.

Monday, March 10th, 7:30pm and Tuesday, March 11th, 7:30pm

The G8: A Different Repetition?
In many ways, last year’s G8 summit on Germany’s Baltic coast was as we had expected it would be: a repetition of previous counter-summit mobilizations from Seattle onwards (Prague, Gothenburg, Genoa, Evian, Cancun, Gleneagles…).

However, what appears like mere repetition is not necessarily a repetition at all; at least not in the sense that it is simply the same thing taking place over and over again. Rather than a return to a particular point in a cycle (bringing Seattle to Germany, for example), Heiligendamm may have represented a break in what has become a familiar trajectory. Is it possible that what came back with 2007 G8 was the reemergence of something unknown?

How are we to understand the mass mobilizations that occur every year around the G8? Are they part of an unforeseeable process of becoming – one that has the potential to go beyond the achievements and limits of the past? If so, how can they function less as a repetition that seeks to mimic and more as a new experiment in the production of politics - overcoming rather than reaffirming existing identities?

Monday, March 10th, 7:30pm
Act 1: Multimedia report-back and analysis from the June 2007 G8 mobilization in Heiligendamm by members of Not An Alternative and Hate The G8 Action Faction.

Act 2: Info-tour and screenings with representatives from No! G8 Action, a Japan-based network of anti-authoritarians and anarchists mobilizing towards the 2008 G8.

Please join us for two evenings dedicated to the G8 mobilizations in Germany (2007) and Japan (2008) by artists and organizers involved in the events. Presenters include Not An Alternative, Hate The G8 Action Faction, Go Hirasawa and Sabu Kohso of Japan's No! G8 Action.

Monday, March 10th, 7:30pm and Tuesday, March 11th, 7:30pm

The G8: A Different Repetition?
In many ways, last year’s G8 summit on Germany’s Baltic coast was as we had expected it would be: a repetition of previous counter-summit mobilizations from Seattle onwards (Prague, Gothenburg, Genoa, Evian, Cancun, Gleneagles…).

However, what appears like mere repetition is not necessarily a repetition at all; at least not in the sense that it is simply the same thing taking place over and over again. Rather than a return to a particular point in a cycle (bringing Seattle to Germany, for example), Heiligendamm may have represented a break in what has become a familiar trajectory. Is it possible that what came back with 2007 G8 was the reemergence of something unknown?

How are we to understand the mass mobilizations that occur every year around the G8? Are they part of an unforeseeable process of becoming – one that has the potential to go beyond the achievements and limits of the past? If so, how can they function less as a repetition that seeks to mimic and more as a new experiment in the production of politics - overcoming rather than reaffirming existing identities?

Monday, March 10th, 7:30pm
Act 1: Multimedia report-back and analysis from the June 2007 G8 mobilization in Heiligendamm by members of Not An Alternative and Hate The G8 Action Faction.

Act 2: Info-tour and screenings with representatives from No! G8 Action, a Japan-based network of anti-authoritarians and anarchists mobilizing towards the 2008 G8.

Please join us for a multimedia presentation on the history and struggles of the Zapatista movement with very special guest from Chiapas, Mexico, Gloria Munoz Ramirez. Famed author of the recently translated El Fuego y la Palabra (The Fire and the Word), Gloria is probably the closest person to the Zapatistas in Chiapas to have ever come to NYC. Don't Miss this!

Saturday, March 29th, 7:00pm

The Fire and the Word
A History of the Zapatista Movement
Video screening and presentation with the author, Gloria Munoz Ramirez

The film and book "El Fuego y la Palabra" (Fire and Word) is an oral history that recounts from the beginning of the movement of the Zapatista indigenous communities in the state of Chiapas. Their demands are liberty, justice, democracy, land, health, education, and labor rights. The story is told in the simple words of some of the original organizers of the movement. It is an inspiring testimony of hope and resistance. The author, Gloria Munoz, will be coming in to speak about the film and book to provide us with more insight to the compilation of this oral history and the struggles that the indigenous communities in the state of Chiapas have been organizing against.

Gloria Muños Ramirez lived with the Zapatistas for 7 years and wrote a book to share their story that is now available for the first time in English. She will speak about the Zapatista resistance and history. She has worked for the Mexican newspaper Punto, for the German news agency DPA, for the U.S. newspaper La Opinion and for the Mexican daily La Jornada.

Campaign EZLN: The Fire and the Word