Fearing assassination, Salman Rushdie cancels appearance at Jaipur literary festival
Salman Rushdie has canceled his talk at Jaipur’s literary festival after hearing rumors that there were plans to assassinate him. The controversial author was due to speak about his early work Midnight’s Children at India’s biggest literary festival, which began on Friday, though influential Muslim clerics had protested his participation, BBC News reported. “I have now [...]
fD participates in the Triangle Network Conference – November 26 & 27
fD founder Todd Lester joins a panel at ‘Networked: Dialogue and Exchange in the Global Art Ecology’ in London, England. Organized by the Triangle Network, the conference featured representatives of arts and cultural networks and organizations from around the world. Topics covered include: the principles and ethics that guide cultural networks, the use of network practices [...]
Prominent Chinese Artist’s Studio Torn Down
BEIJING — The studio would have stood at the heart of an embryonic arts cluster on the outskirts of Shanghai, drawing luminaries from around the world. It took two years to build, and one day to tear down. The new Shanghai studio designed by Ai Weiwei, a protean artist who is one of the most outspoken critics of [...]
Mozambican artist, activist, lawmaker, Malangatana Ngwenya dies at 74
Malangatana Ngwenya, one of Africa’s best-known contemporary artists, whose phantasmagoric paintings were inspired by political conditions in his home country, Mozambique, died on Wednesday in Matosinhos, Portugal. He was 74. Mr. Ngwenya, a beloved national hero in Mozambique, was one of the few African artists to gain substantial worldwide recognition while staying in Africa — an international [...]
Being (T)here: Creating in the Borderlands
Last night (6 Dec 2010) at the historic Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City, writer/painter Breyten Breytenbach (South Africa), poet/painter Huang Xiang (China), and performance artists Chaw Ei Thein and Ye Taik (Burma) explored the concept of Art in Exile via text, conversation, and live performances. freeDimensional has been working with Chaw ei Thein over [...]
Free Belarus – Literary & Human Rights organizations campaign together in weeks before election
Founded in 2005 by a husband-wife team, the Belarus Free Theatre is the only unregistered – thus independent and therefore illegal – dramatic troupe in this post-communist country. Effectively banned at home, BFT’s performances have taken on an underground existence, with audiences alerted via text message or e-mail. Its covert and uncensored performances have drawn [...]
Chaw ei Thein Fights Burma’s Junta with Performance and Paintings {World Policy Blog #3}
In one of the busiest street markets in Yangon, Myanmar (Burma), Chaw Ei Thein and a friend, the artist Htein Lin, created a performance to comment on the inflated prices under the current Burmese government. They sold small items like candy and ribbons for miniscule amounts of money. They were arrested, and would have been jailed [...]
