Introduction:

Safar/Voyage exhibition under the title of "Contemporary Works by Arab, Iranian and Turkish Artists" is a 6 month (April 20, 2013 – September 15, 2013) project of misrepresentation of cultural layerings of Middle Eastern people, their identities, their cultural epistemologies and their stories. Safar/voyage is a well articulated collage of bringing in perspectives of a carefully selected group of artists, speakers and media towards misrepresentation of the cultural identities of the people of Middle East. 

This exhibition is a well-funded (by the Realtor capitals such as Wesbild Holdings ) sponsored and institutionally programmed (by a highly power situated entrepreneurs) towards political misrepresentation of Middle East, its contemporary people and its belief identities.

The timing of the project well aligns with the political regulation of propagandating the identity of the region with notions of injustice,war, and terrorism towards producing the illusion of a threat in the minds of the contemporary audience.

The implicit curriculum of the project stakeholders:

The assemblage of constructing the anti-Indigenous  and anti-cultural (anti-Arab, anti-Persian, anti-Islamic,etc.) meaning is articulated through membership of the following re-presenters who are none fully attached or even coming from the region, whose works have always been politically situated in the Western paradigm, looking at Middle East from the perspective of "the other". Some are as follow:

1- Shirin Neshat: Her peculiar works are associated with representation of Islam as terrorism and anti-feminism. Please refer to the following link for the "veil and terrorism" exhibitions:

http://www.matthewmachowski.com/2009/10/women-of-allah.html

2- Fereshteh Daftari: Her approach associates the region with propagandas of terrorism and human rights abuse. Please refer to the following co-presentation with Ali Banisadr on the discourse formation on the identity of "Ismaeli" people with terrorism and hashishism. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQky02bYdF4

3- Venetia Porter: whose highly political and power structures situationality in the British museum provides her the opportunity to globally regulate an Imperial misrepresentation of the region, the contemporary cultural identities with specific focus on Arab identity, Islam and the rituals. Please refer to her following outsider view representation of "Hajj: the journey to the heart of Islam, British Museum":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR_lYyOz35w

4- Derek Gregory: who is a UBC. scholar writing and lecturing  towards constructing a highly terroristic and violent representation of the region and Islam with main focus on Afghanistan. This highly political geographer specializes in geopolitics and war logistics and his approach in linking the region with notions of vilence and terrorism serves Western military justification with humanitarian claims. Please refer to one of his recent conference lectures on Afghanistan:

Please note minute: 13:43 "The violence that is being ruled in our name"

Minute: 30:01, 31:15,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUTnoKMe8Ew 

5- Laura U. Marks: who has quite a portfolio on ongoing academic criticism  of Islamic art and advocator of urgent deconstructing aniconism in Islamic art. Please refer to her SFU. sources.

Some of the mediators and presenters are situated in highly powered institutions whose affiliation depicts their approach to representation. Some are as follow:

Jian Ghomeshi: CBC. agent

Nader Ardalan: Ghatar and Saudi Arabia Realtor

Hossein Amanat: Baha'i stakeholder, collaborator with Israel state

Colonization of identities and highly political misrepresentation of the specific peoples, cultues and worldviews; is not bounded to absent Arab, Iranian, Turkish, Moslims, Ismaili, Afghan and Indigenous peoples who are targeted n this project. This project also colonizes identities of the present and participant artists who have unconsciously  trusted this initiative as an opportunity to communicate their meaning making and deliberation. Some of them are as follow:

Shahzia Sekandar: Games of Desire series in Art Plural Gallery in Singapore (2012): Communicating Opium and Pakistani culture!

Anthony Shelton: Expressions of self and others (2011)

Peter Morin: Tahltan Indigenous artist (2001)

Jayce Saloum: Critique of representation, power, and agency!

Our Protest:

We acknowledge that this exhibition is on unseated land of Musqueam Indigenous people.

We protest against this anti-Indigenous project of colonization and misrepresentation of Middle East, Arab, Persian, Turkish, Afghan, Muslim, Ismaili people. 

We demand cancellation of the exhibition, specifically the accompanying lectures, presentations and programs that mobilize the conversations towards colonizing the meanings being communicated by the artists as well as the contemporary meanings associated with people  of the regions conversed in the project.

Sponsor

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