Along with each feature, we wish to introduce contemptorary artists, writers, interventions, and interruptions that intrigue and inspire us. For our first feature, we picked Rijin Sahakian’s statement ”On the Closing of Sada for Iraqi Art.” We both thought it was the most urgent piece of writing we had interacted with in the past year. We highly encourage our readers to read her statement in full, as it is going to provide much necessary context for the conversation that follows. In the statement, Sahakian describes the process of building Sada, and her decision to close the organization in 2015:…
By Eunsong Kim & Gelare Khoshgozaran
Editorial Note to Feature #1
For our first feature, we are hoping to create conversations around notions of “freedom”–how are notions of constitutional freedom translated into US contemporary art practices and discourses? Freedom is too often a word tellingly linked to US cultural production. The “freedom” many practitioners are referring to is unfortunately, The Freedom To Oppress, the Freedom to Conquer, the Freedom to Purchase and Destroy and Expand into what does not, nor should belong to us. Rather than this notion of “Freedom”–which we hope will be fundamentally critiqued and outstripped of its current allure–we have been thinking about the ways other writers, thinkers…