Education Program

17-24 February 2017

The Southern Summer School

Image courtesy of Rosie Eveleigh

In February 2017 BAK hosts The Southern Summer School, a project initiated by artists Dorine van Meel and Nelmarie du Preez. The Southern Summer School is a collective project that brings together art practitioners and cultural workers based in South Africa, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It begins from the acknowledgment that the colonial involvement of the Dutch and the British empire in South Africa is not only a historical fact that may be consigned to the past, but that coloniality continues to operate in the present. In the four months leading up to the summer school, a program of preparatory workshops titled Northern Winter Workshops will be organized in various art venues across South Africa, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. These workshops are open to the public and organized by a range of artists, theorists, and activists who address questions of decolonization and social justice within their respective practices.

The Southern Summer School will take place from 17 until 24 February 2017 at BAK in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It will conclude with a final open weekend of screenings, workshops, discussions, lectures, and music by participants and guests on February 25–26. More details can be found here.

The participants of The Southern Summer School are: Phumzile Twala, Thato Magano, Uzair Ben Ebrahim, Sara-Aimee Verity, Simangaliso Sibiya, Thato Rossouw, Ilga Minjon, Alina Jabbari, Judith Westerveld, Sandra Nanteza, Johanna Couvee, Petra Ponte, Annie Goodner, Gisela Carrasco-Miro, Alfie Martis, Elaine Reynolds, Sophie Hoyle, Wigbertson Julian Isenia, Inez Blanca van der Scheer, and Jacqueline Tizora.

Public Program The Southern Summer School

Saturday 25.02.2017

14.00 hrs: Reading Program with contributions by Nelmarie du Preez, Alfie Martis, Uzair Ben Ebrahim, Phumzile Twala, Thato Magano, Simangaliso Sibiya, Gisela Carrasco-Miro, and Sandra Nanteza; simultaneously Ilga Minjon will conduct radio interviews with Sara-Aimee Verity, Simangaliso Sibiya, Nelmarie du Preez, Dorine van Meel, a.o.

17.00 hrs: Dinner and Drinks

18.00 hrs: Panel Discussion
led by researcher and curator Imara Limon with Uzair Ben Ebrahim (#RhodesMustFall), Thato Magano (#FeeMustFall), and Inez Blanca van der Scheer and Jacqueline Tizora (University of Colour)

20.00 hrs: Performance Program with contributions by Sarah-Aimee Verity and Gloria Holwerda-Williams

22.00 hrs: Music Program By Scripted Reality (Ilga Minjon)

Sunday 26.02.2017

14.00 hrs: Lecture Program with contributions by Yvette Mutumba and Wayne Modest

17.00 hrs: Dinner + Drinks

18.00 hrs: Screening Program with video works by Judith Westerveld, Thato Magano, and Miguel Peres dos Santos

Program Northern Winter Workshops

15 October, 19.00–23.00 hrs: Project launch with dinner and drinks
FLAT, Florijn 42, Amsterdam

16 October, 14.00–16.00 hrs: Race, Aesthetics, and the City
Reading group #1 by E.A.M., Butcher’s Tears, Karperweg 45, Amsterdam

3 November, 19.00–21.00 hrs: Race, Aesthetics, and the City
Reading group #2 by E.A.M., Butcher’s Tears, Karperweg 45, Amsterdam

5 November, 14.00–17.00 hrs: Genocidal white Laughter
Workshop by Teresa Diaz Nerio, FLAT, Florijn 42, Amsterdam

21 November, 15.30–18.00 hrs: (Anti)Apartheid en (Anti)racisme in een neokoloniale tijd
Workshop by Marjan Boelsma, IISH, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam

25 November, 19.00–21.00 hrs: Race, Aesthetics, and the City
Reading group #3 by E.A.M., Helicopter, Beatrijsstraat 10, The Hague

26 November, 15.00–17.00 hrs: Solidariteit vandaag in onze neokoloniale tijd
Workshop by Marjan Boelsma, Framer Framed, Tolhuistuin, IJpromenade 2, Amsterdam

17 December, 11.00–14.00 hrs: The Wretched of the Media
Workshop #1 by Simone Zeefuik, Bijlmer Parktheater, Anton de Komplein 240, Amsterdam

19 December, 19.00–21.00 hrs: Race, Aesthetics, and the City
Reading group #4 by E.A.M., Helicopter, Beatrijsstraat 10, The Hague

11 January, 19.00–21.00 hrs: Race, Aesthetics, and the City
Reading group #5 by E.A.M., Peach, Grondherendijk 9B, Rotterdam

14 January, 11.00–14.00 hrs: The Wretched of the Media
Workshop #2 by Simone Zeefuik, Bijlmer Parktheater, Anton de Komplein 240, Amsterdam

11 February, 19.00–21.00 hrs: Race, Aesthetics, and the City
Reading group #6 by E.A.M., Peach, Grondherendijk 9B, Rotterdam

12 February, 11.00–21.00 hrs: Social Justice Practices in Film & Online Media: Finding your Critical Voice
Workshop by and screening with Bibi Fadlalla, (location tbc), Amsterdam

Suggestions from the archive

Learning

10 May, 12.00–12 May, 18.00 2023

Complaint Making: Setting Up Conflict-Positive Spaces for Community Building Praxis

Vishnu would like to share feminist governance tools (FGT) focused on three of many tiers in community building praxis. FGT is based on the values of equity with an emphasis on creating psychologically safe environments, drawing on the use of consent. Decision-making processes, setting up conflict-positive spaces, and complaint-making as diversity work will form the body of this three-day training. Rooted in Vishnu’s autho-ethnographic practice, this work will explore the power dynamics that impact decision-making processes.

Performative

10 May, 12.00–12 May, 18.00 2023

The Diamond Mind II

In this dance training, the people will use a one-minute film of their own movement as material for a booklet—a sixteen page signature—that distributes their presence, their gesture, as an act of EQ. 

Learning

3 May, 12.00–4 May, 18.00 2023

Too Late To Say Sorry? 

A bad apology can ruin a friendship, destroy a community, or end a career. In this workshop, we will investigate the impact of apologies on our relationships and our worlds. Why and how do we make apologies? What can giving and receiving apologies teach us about values and integrity? Should you apologize for something you don’t really feel sorry for? We will explore conflict and how we like to be in conflict with others. We will dive into our own boundaries. We will seek to understand how honoring limits becomes an act of building (or freeing) better worlds capable of holding so many, many more of us.

Learning

28 April, 12.00–29 April, 18.00 2023

Huisje, Boompje, Beestje (D.A.F.O.N.T.)

In this rare masterclass, retired teacher and artist Glenda Martinus teaches participants a thing or two about painting with Microsoft Word. Martinus shares tips, tricks, and secrets on how to use this software to its unexpected potential as a drawing tool. Participants learn how to draw three basic objects—a house, a tree, and an animal—in a seemingly innocent exercise that perhaps contains more layered social commentary. Drawing the worlds we desire does not require expensive tools or education, simply a curiosity to understand how the monster’s tools can topple the house of the master.