Episode 1: A Film is a Statement

19–22 Jan 2012
CCA, Glasgow
Performance

The Museum of Non-Participation

Karen Mirza, Brad Butler & Nabil Ahmed
19:30–20:10 Fri 20 Jan
CCA
 / Glasgow

Friday or Festival Pass

  • The Museum of Non Participation written on a wall in English and Arabic
    The Museum of Non Participation
  • Nabil Ahmed is reading a text, a bare lightbulb hanging in front of his face
    Nabil Ahmed: The Museum of Non Participation
  • Karen Mirza reads a text on stage, a bright light shining on her
    Karen Mirza: The Museum of Non Participation

About the event

Who
Karen and Brad are two of the UK’s most interesting, thoughtful (expanded1) film artists and part of the invaluable film production/ critical dialogue/ image making resource no.w.here. Nabil is an artist, writer, and musician; he often deals with issues of immigration and human rights; he’s a member of Call & Response.

Brad and Karen first thought of The Museum of Non Participation in 2007 when - during the Pakistani Lawyers movement in Islamabad - they viewed the protests and subsequent state violence from a window in The National Art Gallery. 
 
What
An expanded film performance/ lecture/ intervention of texts, slides, narration, video and film; the performance charts the coming into being of The Museum of Non Participation, as an artistic, social and political experiment to define the boundaries of non-participation and resistance.2  
 
Why
The performance brings together different materials (film, text, speech) and temporarily constructs a filmic space to think through questions of resistance, and the choice and consequence of action vs. inaction: what does it mean to choose to not take part? 
 
After the screening of Kino Beleške (Film Notes) by Lutz Becker - Brad, Karen and Nabil will join Lutz for a chat.
  • 1. i.e.: they make films, and they also make multi-screen, immersive, performance-based, architectural, durational film spaces.
  • 2. And which has so far variously involved, in London: English/Urdu language classes, a kind of cultural exchange space behind Yaseen’s Hairdressers on the Bethnal Green Road…; and in Karachi: performances at Sunday Bazaar, text banners around town, and newspapers as packaging for food sold by the tandoor walla’s…