News from the International Network, June 2009

Bao Pu, Taslima Nasrin, and Ma Thida in NYC

Over the course of the next week freeDimensional (fD) joins the Asian American Writers' Workshop, the World Policy Institute, New York University's Scholars at Risk Network, Ledig House,and Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies to present three remarkable writers as they discuss their experiences at the turbulent intersection of political oppression and creative expression:

Tiananmen 20 Years Later: Bao Pu and the Memoirs of Zhao Ziyang - on Sunday, June 21, from 2 pm to 3:30 pm

Bao Pu is the editor and translator of Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang. The bestselling volume compiles hours of secretly recorded interviews and unprecedented insight into the schisms within the Chinese Communist Party's elite. Bao Pu is a political commentator and veteran human rights activist, he is a publisher and editor of New Century Press in Hong Kong.

Writing and Tactics from Bangladesh to Burma: A conversation between Taslima Nasrin and Ma Thida - Wednesday, June 24, from 7 pm to 8:30 pm

Taslima Nasrin and Ma Thida, both medical doctors from South Asia, have made huge personal sacrifices to be able to write and speak about causes and beliefs that are important to them. In this conversation, moderated by World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Kavitha Rajagopalan, the two women talk about their writing, the tactics that have enabled them to keep writing despite death threats, imprisonment and exile, and the wrenching choices they have made in order to stand up for others' rights.

The conversations will be held at The Asian American Writers' Workshop, on 16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor (between Broadway and Fifth Avenue), New York, New York. There is a suggested donation of $5 for these events. Both events are open to the public, and advance registration is strongly recommended by emailing events@worldpolicy.org

As an extension of fD's Creative Safe Haven and Distress Information Services, fD occasionally convenes Creative Resistance Retreats for two activists from the same region to share their experiences with one another. In May, Taslima Nasrin (Bangaladesh) and Ma Thida (Myanmar) came to Ledig House at Art Omi International Arts Center.

The June 24 conversation is the culmination of their dialogue. Additionally, Thida included an article about the retreat in a youth magazine she publishes in Yangon (p15) and one of the other writers-in-residence, Lee Tulloch, gave an interview on Australia's national radio, in which she talks about her 8 weeks at Ledig House with a special mention of the weekend that Taslima and Thida joined the residency:

Emerging Art Space Support Initiative (EASSI)

From 25 June – 1 July, fD is hosting emerging art spaces from all over the world at a training conference on Wasan Island in the Muskoka Lakes of Canada through the support of the Breuninger Stiftung and the Ford Foundation. For more information about the event and the Emerging Art Space Support Initiative (EASSI) see freedimensional.ning.com/profiles/blogs/emerging-art-spaces-at

fD and Casa das Caldeiras launch Video Volunteers program in São Paulo, Brazil

VCU.br is a collaboration between Video Volunteers and fD’s Hub Partner in Brazil, Casa das Caldeiras. VCU.br is a communication workshop and audio-visual laboratory for young adults living in vulnerable communities of São Paulo. Over the next eight months, 10 Video Fellows will be trained as citizen journalists in order that their communities are better represented in the media and that they individually gain livelihood skills through video production. VCU.br will be launched in June.

Censorship and the Arts: A Panel Discussion with Artists and Human Rights Organizations – August 11, 7-9pm at the University of Osnabrück

As part of the inaugural Summer School on Law, Language and Culture at the University of Osnabrück, a roundtable discussion brings together artists and human-rights organizations working on the frontlines of censorship and free creative expression. fD director, Todd Lester, will be a panelist together with Ole Reitov, project manager for FreeMuse, and Natalia Koliada and Nikolei Khalezin, the cofounders and artistic directors of the underground theater troupe, Belarus Free Theatre

Friends of fD – Active around the World

One of fD’s new art space partners in Turkey, Caravansarai, recently hosted a very cool event in Istanbul that bridges community-building and food traditions. Virtual Chef is a part of the Portable Art Project of the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture programme.

The TODODOMINGO event at Casa das Caldeiras in Brazil will present a special event, together with The Institute of Social Responsability from SOCIÉTÉ GENERALE BRASIL. This "tododomingo" will be about citizenship and the relevance of social responsability. Organizations that work with these issues will present their work on June 21st, from 4 to 8pm.

Fahed Halabi, in residence with the Festival Against Censorship in Bilbao, was recently included in a group show, ‘Men in the Sun’ at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel through September 13, 2009. The exhibition "Men in the Sun" explores contemporary Palestinian art, whose practitioners live and work in Israel. The thirteen artists participating in the exhibition are all Palestinian citizens of Israel, who began operation in two very different periods in the history of the Palestinian minority in Israel: Five of them were born into a reality of military government which continued from 1948 to its official abolishment in 1966; the remaining eight artists – including Fahed – were born after the 1967 War.

Zurab Rtveliashvili, from the Republic of Georgia, is in residence at Kultuuritehas in Tartu, Estonia where he participated in the launch of the Tartu Culture Festival and a reading on Estonian TV.

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More from us next month!