Dor Guez, installation detail of 'The Sick Man of Europe', 2015, at the ICA, London. Image courtesy the artist and the ICA.
Dor Guez, installation detail of ‘The Sick Man of Europe’, 2015, at the ICA, London. Image courtesy the artist and the ICA.

TEXT2SPEECH is a series of reading groups organised by the ICA Student Forum to provide a space for debate around an eclectic range of texts, with each meeting topically responding to a part of the ICA’s current programme. The group is free to join and open to all, encouraging anyone with an interest in contemporary art and theory to join either regularly or for one of the meetings.

Re-blogged from “TEXT2SPEECH: Documentary Tactics” by Kelise Franclemont with Jane Scarth for ICA.org.uk – 18 May 2015

Artists resort to ‘documentary tactics’

For the TEXT2SPEECH session on 1 April 2015, participants were invited to review two texts that draw upon themes in the recent ICA exhibition, Dor Guez: The Sick Man of Europe. In this rich and engaging discussion, the readings served to contextualise Guez’s exhibition as well as provide a space in which to share interest in the culture and art of this region.

The primary reading, No Occupation Without Representation – Artists in Palestine by HG Masters from ArtAsiaPacific (2011), centres around the work of Palestinian artists who have largely resorted to “documentary tactics” such as film, performance and photography in order to “address the urgent subjects of modern Palestinian culture: dispossession, nostalgia, exile and resistance.” The second text by Rona Sela for Ibraaz, Rethinking National archives in Colonial Countries and Zones of Conflict (2014) offered insight into how Zionist archives form part of “a powerful institutional system”, and how this cache of photographs, documents and films may be re-read to “hear the voices of the oppressed, learn their history and restore their ownership and rights.”

Click link to continue reading…. “TEXT2SPEECH: Documentary Tactics” on the ICA website…

Dor Guez, screenshot from 'The Painter', 2015, colour video and sound, 20:00, in 'The Sick Man of Europe' at the ICA, London. Image courtesy the artist and the ICA.
Dor Guez, screenshot from ‘The Painter’, 2015, colour video and sound, 20:00, in ‘The Sick Man of Europe’ at the ICA, London. Image courtesy the artist and the ICA.

View/download the readings for TEXT2SPEECH: Documentary Tactics

More links and information about TEXT2SPEECH and the ICA

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