Come and experience personal exchange in a globalizing world: a post-exotic transcultural play of positions! Various Dutch and Flemish artists tempt us to experience a present-day cultural economy through experimental visual and literary narratives, acquired during exchanges with locals from China to Bahrain, from the Argentinean pampas to Ethiopia!
With: Allard van Hoorn, Fanny Zaman, Filip van Dingenen & Barbara Pereyra, Khatt Foundation: Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès & Jan de Bruin, Jack Segbars, Paul Hendrikse, Richtje Reinsma, Rieneke de Vries, Simon Kentgens, Wouter Osterholt & Elke Uitentuis.
The transcultural dynamic of Global Villaging redefines several cultural anchors. First, the dominance of the Western concept of culture has expired. We are dealing with a culture in crisis. On the one hand, it is conservatively looking for support in the recently acquired anchors of human rights and the welfare results of the capitalist liberal democracy. On the other hand, it experiences the results of a faltering nutrition of these comfort zones. The reality of the Global Village completely ignores the ethical standard which supported the way in which we practiced our culture.
Thus, also the Western, modernist concept of culture has collapsed as cultural standard. The beauty and composition applied by an avant-garde are no longer the supporting forces for cultural change. On the new transcultural stage, art has to assert its actual influence in the social-economic sphere. This cultural production manifests itself transnationally, between people, and nourishes new social-economic configurations.
Transcultural dynamic is non-hierarchic and fragmented. It moves among the masses. It goes against the dominant opinions which consider global cultural development to be a universal process of assimilation and hybridization. It is rather rooted in media specificity and the interlocutor.
But then is it possible to discover a logic in its communication structure? How is the Global Villager shaping his identity, as an individual and as intercultural actor? A number of themes present themselves: economic, religious, politico-military, and social. Like Global Villagers, the artists in this exhibition move within this dynamic.
