Collaboration and Open call

03 December 2020–30 January 2021

 

Manifesting Systemic Change through Creative Waves

Design: Tyneisha van Veltum

A collaborative open call by Stichting Nederland Wordt Beter, The Black Archives/New Urban Collective, Black Queer & Trans Resistance NL, Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, for artists and writers to manifest the Manifesting Systemic Change Through Creative Waves manifesto.

Following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis this past June, and in response to the countless other Black people killed by police in recent years, more than 60000 people took to the streets throughout the Netherlands. Alongside these historic #BlackLivesMatter protests and related campaigns, there has been an increasing awareness that the Netherlands is struggling with its own pervasive institutional racism. Amid this wave of recognition locally, many Black and other people of color have taken part in antiracist protests or have spoken out about racism and discrimination in this country for the first time. Policymakers and politicians have actively participated in the debate.​

Following these manifestations, Stichting Nederland Wordt Beter (NLWB), The Black Archives/New Urban Collective (TBA/NUC), and Black Queer & Trans Resistance NL (BQTR) organized public meetings in five provinces in the Netherlands. The output from these meetings, as well as interviews with experts, and online surveys conducted by the organizations have helped to inform the development of a new, collectively-written document, “Manifesting Systemic Change Through Creative Waves.” With its aim toward combating institutional racism and promoting Black emancipation, the manifesto will be presented to Black communities, the anti-racist movement, political parties, policymakers, institutions, and civil society. The manifesto includes advice and a set of requirements from and for Black communities to effectively tackle racism in various domains such as education, the labor market, art, and culture. It is not set in stone: we see it as a “living document” which can be adapted through engagement with Black communities and wider society. We expect to present the manifesto in January 2021.

In connection to this manifesto, and in further cultivation of a multi-pronged project of anti-racist change in the Netherlands, NLWB, TBA/NUC, and BQTR, along with Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, are launching an open call for artists and writers to “manifest the manifesto.” The call is driven by the crucial need to activate the manifesto, and to engage with it as a living document across several sectors of society. Conceived in collaboration with creative makers and thinkers, this call aims to deepen and visibilize the messages of the manifesto through creative forms. Further, its goal is to demonstrate progressive ideas in multiple forms of learning, seeing, reading, and experiencing, and to provoke continued adaptation and new forms of allyship and resistance.

You can find the Zwarte Manifest (Black Manifesto) here (Dutch text).

Suggestions from the archive

Sint Maarten Parade

22 October–10 November 2023

BAK at the Sint Maarten Parade 2023

For Sint Maarten Parade 2023, Tools for Action—a non-profit organization that develops artistic interventions for political actions—collaborates with Utrecht-based members of Filipino, Caribbean, and other communities to collectively dream a parade compartment.

Panel Discussion

30 September 2023, 16.30-18.30

To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall

A book launch and panel discussion reflecting on the Jina Uprising, one year after its beginning.

Saturday, 30 September, 2023, 16:30–18:30 hrs at BAK, basis actuele kunst, Utrecht Organized by Jina Collective, a Netherlands-based feminist, leftist, anti-capitalist, anti-sexist, and pro-LQBTQIA+ action group that emerged from the Jina Uprising. This event launches a book of translated essays, co-published with BAK, which include some of the first English translations of texts by journalists […]

Public Program

09 September–29 October 2023

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023)/Public Program

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023) involves a hybrid off- and online sequence of conversations and screenings around discursive and artistic interventions that reimagine the social implications of watching the war through ways that disrupt, subvert, resist the media’s incessant spectacularization of war.