Educational platform

15-24 November 2013

New World Academy #1: Towards a People’s Culture

  • Performance Proposal for a Transnational People’s Trial

Session I:
Towards a People’s Culture

Towards a People’s Culture centers around the critical role of art and artists in the Maoist-oriented National Democratic Movement of the Philippines, specifically through developing an understanding of the revolutionary potential of the musical, the educational cartoon, the effigy (protest puppetry), and the “People’s Trial” as a theatrical model to publicly denounce and prosecute state terrorism.

Thinking with Filipino artists, writers, theater makers and members of cultural collectives such as the Concerned Artists of the Philippines, participants developed a model for a transnational “People’s Trial” as a proposition for the performative exploration of art’s possibility vis-a-vis the circumstances of oppression and inequality.

Teachers: Lisa Ito (member of Concerned Artists of the Philippines, Quezon City), Luis Jalandoni (chairman of National Democratic Front of the Philippines, Utrecht), Walkie Mirańa (member of Concerned Artists of the Philippines, Manila), and Jose Maria Sison (founder of Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army, Utrecht).

Coordinators: Matthijs de Bruijne (artist and union organizer, Amsterdam) and Vincent W. J. van Gerven Oei (philosopher and publisher, Tirana).

The accompanying publication, New World Academy Reader #1: Towards a People’s Culture, includes contributions by: Ericson Acosta (activist and poet, Manila), Beatrice de Graaf (Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Utrecht), Alice G. Guillermo (theorist, Manila), Lisa Ito, Jose Maria Sison, and Mao Tse-tung (former Chairman of the Communist Party, Beijing).

Program

*unless otherwise noted, all programs are public

15.–17.11.2013
Instructional workshop
closed

17.11.2013, 17.00–19.00 hrs
Towards a People’s Culture
public forum with the participants, teachers, and coordinators, followed by the launch of Jose Maria Sison’s new book of collected poetry, The Guerilla is Like a Poet
BAK, Utrecht

19.–24.11.2013, 12.00–17.00 hrs
Towards a People’s Culture
exhibition with works by: Jef Carnay (artist, Manila), Communist Party of the Philippines (PH/NL), Concerned Artist of the Philippines (Manila), Rey Paz Contreras (sculptor, Manila), Brenda Fajardo (artist, Quezon City), Linangan Art and Culture Network (artists collective, NL), Romel Linatoc (singer and stage director, Quezon City), Bienvenido Lumbera (poet, critic, and dramatist, Quezon City), Edward Perez(musician, Manila), and Jose Maria Sison
BAK, Utrecht

23.11.2013, 15.00–17.00 hrs
Proposal for a Transnational People’s Trial, performance
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

In collaboration with

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.