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Art from every quarter of the world in Kassel The names of the participating artists will be announced one month
before the opening of Documenta 11 on June 8, 2002. The event in
the German city of Kassel, which is held once every 5 years, is
one of the foremost surveys of contemporary art. The guest curator
this time round is the Nigerian Okwui Enwezor. As anticipated, he
is inviting considerably more non-western artists than his predecessor.
As an introduction to the exhibition, Enwezor has organised conferences
in Lagos and New Delhi and on St. Lucia. One of the most frequent
topics at these 'platforms' is the dynamics of globalisation. Film about September 11Eleven directors are going to make a film about September 11, 2001
- the day of the attacks in New York. The directors come from India,
Burkina Fasso, Iran, Israel, Mexico, the United States and Egypt,
among other countries. The objective of the project is to place
the terrorist attacks in a broader perspective. The film will consist
of eleven separate films, each exactly eleven minutes and nine seconds
long. The film will premiere on September 11, 2002 in a number of
countries. United Nations Children's Summit in New York"We are the children whose voices are not heard. It is time
you pay attention to us." This is what the Bolivian Gabriela
Azurduy Arrieta (13) and Audrey Cheynut (17) from Monaco said to
government representatives from more than 150 countries. They appeared
as spokespeople for several hundred children that attended the Children's
Summit at the United Nations, from May 8th - 10th in New York. 'Don Quixote the best book in the world'A hundred renowned authors from over fifty countries have voted
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes as the best book in the world.
The vote was organised by a Norwegian book club that is associated
with the Nobel Prize Institute. The jury compiled a list of one
hundred works of fiction, primarily works by western male authors.
Those voting selected the seventeenth century masterpiece by the
Spaniard Cervantes by a large majority. Is 'nigger' allowed in the dictionary?Publisher Van Dale Lexicografie should remove the words 'nigger'
and 'creole' from its Unabridged Dictionary of the Dutch Language
in the opinion of the Foundation for Honour and Reparations for
the Victims of Slavery in Surinam. According to the Foundation these
words were originally terms of abuse used by whites; in the Foundation's
opinion including them in the Unabridged Van Dale offends Surinamese
people. Earlier this year the spokesperson for the Foundation organised
a public book burning of Van Dale dictionaries, but the event was
cancelled. Now a complaint has been submitted to the Commission
for Equal Treatment. The Commission will make a ruling regarding
this issue soon. ANC participate in beauty pageantThe ANC-Jeugdliga
(ANC Youth Association) is going to collaborate with Sun
International, the organiser of the Miss South Africa beauty
pageant. The members of the political association wants more girls
from poor areas to be able to participate in the pageant. In an
effort to promote this, they are going to help young women from
the townships with the preparations for the sometimes complicated
preliminary rounds. The ANC youth denies that racial motivations
are involved. The last election was won by a 21-year old while South
African. Saartjie Baartman goes homeThe mortal remains of a South African woman are going home after
two centuries. The person involved is Saartjie Baartman (1789) of
the Khoi tribe. Many members of her tribe were murdered by Dutch
colonists, including Baartman's family. Then an English physician
took the slave, who was twenty at the time, to England. Because
of here large buttocks and genitalia, she put her in a carnival
side show. The woman, who came to be known as the 'Hottentot Venus',
died six years later in Paris as a prostitute. Because doctors regarded
here as a rarity, here brains and sex organs were placed in formaldehyde.
They also made a plaster copy of her body, which was displayed in
the Parisian Musée de l'Homme until 1974. Soccer film too funnyAccording to reports China has banned the successful Hong Kong
film Shaolin Soccer. The box office hit, also known as Siu lam juk
kau, won prizes for best actor, best director, best film and best
visual effects at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2001. The Chinese
say that the comedy by director Stephen Chow makes fun of soccer.
According to the authorities this cannot be allowed now that China
is participating in the World Cup Championship. Sources: Algemeen Dagblad, NRC Handelsblad, het Parool, Trouw, de Volkskrant, Het Nieuwsblad, De Standaard, Le Monde, The Guardian, Documenta, De norske Bokklubbene, ANC Youth, United Nations, World Bank |
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Amsterdam Roots Festival |
