Interview with Ahmed Nadalian

In March I undertook a residency with the artist Ahmed Nadalian in Iran. During the residency I interviewed Ahmed about Iran, and that interview was published yesterday by Cultura21.

Read the interview here

I would like to say a special thanks to Tom Doig of tomdoig.com for helping me to edit the interview and providing general moral support.

Violating Democracy

On 21st of June I was invited to perform for a protest event in Berlin called 'Violating Democracy'.

The event was targeted at Greece's recent austerity measures, more specifically, the cuts to services that the Greek government has made in order to meet austerity targets set by the EU.

Any economist will tell you that there are two ways for a country to reduce debt - increase tax revenue, or cut spending. Increasing tax revenue targets tax evaders and wealthy people, and is a difficult and arduous task for any government, and can take a long time to see any effects. Cutting spending is quick, easy and mostly affects the poor. If enough pressure is applied, or if a government is lazy, it will take this second option.

Sometimes,  if they are to services people require, the effects of cuts cause death. In the case of the subject of my performance, Dimitris Christoulas, they had the consequence of him no longer being able to live on his pension. He sadly hung himself in Syntagma Square, Athens, on April 4th, 2012.

The Desperate Voyage

I have nothing to add to what is already an over-politicised phenomena, which is the manifestation of people seeking asylum in Australia arriving by boat.

Except that xenophobia is a product of distance. Distance is, I have been arguing, the political mechanism through which people are turned against one another. Distance is created, and twisted to serve political ends.

Art collapses this distance. In Australia, I think, it mostly fails, but I would like to be proven wrong in the future.

Final Performance of 'People Spoke'

Areille and Orion (in absentia) were kind enough to host me for my final performance in Berlin, as part of Berlin's Month of Performance art.

I inserted a slightly different opening for this perfomance. Here is an excerpt:

SLAVOJ ZIZEK: You know what is interesting to me in the Turkey situation is that its alot like the Arab Spring yes, but also the Turks have much more, er, media *sniff* and so it was even quicker to get out on the internet and so on. I mean this is a really good example, I think, where, you know, the media is not reporting directly so much on the crisis, but it also doesn’t matter so much because the narrative is already written without them.

Thank you to all who came last night, it was such a pleasant and unexpected evening.

rp

MVI 0584 from Richard Pettifer on Vimeo.

People Spoke - Berlin (1) from Richard Pettifer on Vimeo.
Photos/Videos: Arielle Bier

Berlin Bombing

Wedding is a suburb of Berlin known for its Turkish population (which is actually only about 30%). We sat on a particular wall of Wedding every day for one week from 4-11th May, and constructed a Wall Embassy. The concept was to create a space that did not exist within national structures. Our research centred on 'Statelessness', which is a term denoting both people who have no nationality and are therefore not protected by international law, and the utopian idea of people who are free to float between national borders with relative freedom, such as I was doing on my way over to Berlin from Australia (although it was not as easy as this sounds).

People could join us on the wall by climbing the ladder and passing a simple test, which most artists failed. The test was as follows:

1) Think of an 'apple' and say 'banana'
2) Think of 'Europe' and say 'Egypt'
3) Think of a 'Beggar' and say 'Businessman'

Performances in Bucharest

In Bucharest, I found a generous and engaged arts community. I made two performances, both to full houses, one in an abandoned building which has been turned into an arts space called Carol 53, and the other in the Apartment Theatre of my host, Lorin, called Lorgean Theatre.

http://lorgeantheatre.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/un-australian-la-lorgean/
http://casacarol53.wordpress.com/

Photos from the performance of People Spoke in Carol 53 were taken by Ana-Maria Iordache, who was also my host along with her sister Roxana.

"The most dangerous forms of oppression are created by shaking hands" Interview with Cristina Toderas

As part of my performances in Bucharest, I was interviewed by journalist Cristina Toderas. The full interview can be found using the link below (Romanian).

http://totb.ro/cele-mai-periculoase-forme-de-opresiune-sunt-create-prin-strangeri-de-maini/

”Cele mai periculoase forme de opresiune sunt create prin strângeri de mâini” _

A translation with Google Translate (and some grammatical corrections) follows.

"The most dangerous forms of oppression are created by shaking hands"

People Spoke is the performance that Richard Pettifer aims to discuss individual freedom and its limits. The show is part of Global Warming tour, which began on 1 January 2013 and will be completed when the artist will comes to Berlin, where he will join other artists who protest against unsustainable methods used by governments. During the tour, departing from central Australia to Darwin, then across the Timor Sea to Indonesia, stopping in Java and Sumatra Islands, then in Singapore, Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, Myanma, Northern India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey to Europe Richard preferred to travel by bus or train. A plane used only twice since the beginning of the challenge, when it was absolutely necessary. The only way to leave Australia is flying, and the artist needed artificial wings to cross Myanmar.