XCO EVENTS: 090219/Art and Revolution at El Kilombo Intergalactico

STUDENTS, FACULTY & LOCAL ARTISTS (AND REVOLUCIONARIOS)
...IF YOU'D LIKE TO PARTICIPATE (NOT MUCH TIME LEFT) see bottom of message

Please forward this opportunity to organization members, apologies for the cross-listings!

PANEL EVENT: ART AND REVOLUTION
February 19, 2009 (Thursday)
6:30pm, at El Kilombo Social Center
324 West Geer Street, Durham NC 27701
(919) 688-8768
Directions to Kilombo: http://www.elkilombo.org/directionstospace/directions.html

6:30pm: LIVE TROVA MUSIC, GALLERY OF COMMUNITY ARTWORK
**Nueva trova is a movement in Cuban music that emerged around 1967/68 after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the consequent political and social changes.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nueva_trova)

7:00pm: PANELISTS
**Speaker I: Fred Moten, Department of English at Duke University; author of In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition
**Speaker II: Robin D. G. Kelley, Department of American Studies and Ethnicity; author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, and Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
**Speaker III: Representative of El Kilombo

PANEL DESCRIPTION
This event in El Kilombo's ongoing series addresses Art and Revolution. We have planned this panel in celebration of a tradition of Art/Work that participates in remaking the world, through the collective, creative process of building democratic practices. It is clear to us that the creative use of music and language and color is essential to this endeavor, but we do not limit our definition of 'art' to the isolated, aesthetic object; we mean to reclaim 'art' and 'creativity' in the service of the creation of a more just system of living. We look to the US Black radical tradition for inspiration, with guest speakers FRED MOTEN, author of In the Break: the Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, and ROBIN D. G. KELLEY, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, and the forthcoming Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. A representative of El Kilombo will conclude the panel.

SERIES DESCRIPTION
An enormous political crisis is emerging in the United States, involving the privatization of public goods, the elimination of public space, the marketization of political representation, the displacement of poor communities—in short, the privatization of wealth and the socialization of misery. All evidence seems to suggest that these watershed transformations resulting from global capitalism are picking up speed. If one were to listen to prevalent media discourse, however, the global supremacy of the US, our dysfunctional party-political system, and the power of neoliberalism will survive the coming crisis unscarred. The perspective from below is somewhat different. History teaches us, and the debacle of the current financial crisis bears out, that the brunt impact of these changes will fall hardest on working class and people of color communities. Furthermore, it was from below that the "modern world" was made possible, and it is here (away from the cameras and microphones of those above) that another world is already under construction. In this context, the El Kilombo community speaker series provides us with a space to think strategically about the struggles that must be continually developed in the face of this gathering storm. We will examine these transformations through multiple lenses, in conversation with national and international guest speakers on issues including: the relation of movements to electoral politics; gentrification, the logic of racialized power, and the central importance of territorial control; and the inspiration of global struggles for dignity and autonomy.

Things Unseen, the El Kilombo Speaker Series, will continue through April and will include:

Part 3: THE END OF AN ERA: THE NEW UNREST AND THE EMERGING COMMONISM
March 3, 2009 (Tuesday)
7:00pm, at El Kilombo Social Center
**Speaker: Gustavo Esteva, "Deprofessionalized intellectual"; founder of the Universidad de La Tierra in Oaxaca; author of Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures

Part 4: GLOBAL MOVEMENTS FOR AUTONOMY--EUROPE
April 4, 2009 (Saturday)
5:00pm, at El Kilombo Social Center
**Speaker: Angel Luis Lara, Musician and sociologist; Lara conducts research at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid

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El Kilombo will be holding the second event of an on going series.
To accompany the panle ?Art and Revolution,? El Kilombo would like to
display artwork by community members. We seek works not limited in medium size
and material, from both trained and self-taught artists. This can include
drawings, painting, photographs, prints, etc.

If you have a work you are interested in sharing please contact Kency Cornejo
with a brief description and dimensions as soon as possible.

Kency.cornejo@duke.edu
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