Art and Conflict

This online journal focuses on the relationship between art and international conflict, the outcome of a year-long research programme. It brings together a diverse range of perspectives, provocations, questions, insights and possibilities by artists and curators, writers, and academics. The publication explores the work of contemporary artists, activists and cultural organisations in the context of armed conflict, revolution and post-conflict. An introduction by Michaela Crimmin (Royal College of Art and co-director Culture+Conflict) precedes specially commissioned essays and texts by artist Jananne Al-Ani; Dr Bernadette Buckley (Goldsmiths, University of London); writer Malu Halasa; curator Jemima Montagu (co-director, Culture+Conflict); curator Sarah Rifky (Beirut, Cairo); artist Larissa Sansour; and, Professor Charles Tripp (SOAS). Two further essays by Michaela Crimmin and Dr Bernadette Buckley reflect on art and conflict in Higher Education in the UK

4Cs Artist Residency

The RCA is a partner in a major four-year research programme titled 4Cs: from Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture. This included an Artist Residency co-funded by Creative Europe and the RCA, curated by Michaela Crimmin, Reader in Art and Conflict, RCA and 4Cs UK art director. After an extensive selection process, advised by international curators, Noor Abuarafeh was invited to London. A Palestinian artist living and working in Jerusalem, Abuarafeh questions how history is constructed, visualised, perceived, and understood; how all these elements are related to fact and fiction, including imagining the past when there are gaps in documentation. Noor Abuarafeh’s research focused on the whereabouts of works by Palestinian artists from exhibitions that took place in Europe in the last century, and particularly from an exhibition in 1919 held at the Imperial War Museums. Lost, overlooked, displaced, or hidden, these artworks and the process of finding them act as a metaphor for displaced and marginalised people - a constructive reclamation of history in part as an act of reconciliation, contextualising the present in the past. The outcome of the residency was an art book entitled ‘Rumours Began Some Time Ago’, a response to the question ‘how can we document what is absent?’ It includes an illustrated account of British involvement during the Mandate where civil servants sought to create a museum dedicated to Palestinian art and crafts in Jerusalem. It focuses particularly on the role of the ‘Pro Jerusalem Society’, established in 1917 by Sir Ronald Storrs, the then Military Governor of Jerusalem. An online version of the publication is available. The Delfina Foundation hosted Noor’s residency. Hilary Roberts, Research Curator of Photography at the Imperial War Museums, and Jack Persekian, director of the Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem, both supported the residency. Further informations: https://4cs-conflict-conviviality.e

Quicksand

A work that addresses migration through a sound installation that brings a future narrative. People in the UK are using the routes refugees have taken to come to Europe to escape unpalatable socio-political realities in Britain

The art of power and the power of art

An essay commissioned by the Royal United Services Institute, an independent think tank on international defence and security. The piece claims the value art brings to the subject of conflict, highlighting a number of artists who variously address many different aspects of conflict in their work such as Omer Fast on the subject of cyber warfare and Dinh Q Le bringing memories of the Vietnam War back into consideration

This is no longer that place

A Handbook describing the development and delivery of the 4Cs Workshop held at The Showroom and Tate Britain during March 2019, with reflections on developing and managing the event, authored by Michaela Crimmin and Dr Peter Oakley

This is no longer that place: A public discussion

These two events asked to what extent can art affect change when addressing issues of migration, displacement, and access - a public discussion exploring the capacity of artists and arts institutions to intervene in the current geopolitical climate. They were preceded by a screening of French-Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili’s ‘The Tempest Society’ and the launch of the artist’s book by the same name, in a partnership between the RCA, The Showroom and Book Works. The Tempest Society revisits ‘Al Assifa’, a politicised theatre group born out of the struggles of the Mouvement des Travailleurs Arabes (MTA), Palestine, anti-colonialism, and workers’ and immigrant labour rights. The programme of screenings, presentations and debate that followed took place just twenty-four days before the UK was due to leave the UK on 31 March 2019. Curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of The Showroom, with Michaela Crimmin, Reader in art and conflict at the RCA, they were held in partnership with Tate Britain. Gurminder Bhambra, professor of postcolonial and decolonial studies at the University of Sussex, gave the opening keynote addressing the inter-related subjects of national sovereignty, immigration laws, empire, racism, and dispossession. The artists and curators who followed included Kathrin Böhm, who talked about the artist-run pro-Remain campaign ‘Keep it complex – make it clear!’; Austrian artist Oliver Ressler who described projects which challenge racism and power structures; and Peruvian, Barcelona-based artist Daniela Ortiz, who took issue with the violence of migration and integration politics. There is a 35-minute video of extracts from the events, together with videos of a number of the presentations. The Royal College of Art is a partner in a four-year research programme, which includes these events, under the title '4Cs: from Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture'. This is a European Cooperation project co-funded by Creative Europe. https://4cs-conflict-conviviality.e