During the recent movements of contestation in Mediterranean countries different kind of aesthetic gestures using the streets and the public spaces as places for a public manifestation of some social, ordinary -or radical- critic. They proceed from an ordinary culture that is transformed, adapted then spread out upon a new form in artistic tracks taking place in public spaces. These actions have both a critical and aesthetic dimension. They rely on the environment, mobilize cognitive, memorial and cultural or ordinary patterns. They also mobilize a common culture . This is the case of rap, new uses of old music, villages against occupation, graphic art in Palestine, in Egypt or in Syria. The conference will present and analyse some forms of experimentations, and public and critical commitments. What kind of “public spaces” is in use nowadays? How it configures new spaces of critic and public space and a new environment ? The panel will adopt a trans-disciplinary perspective by bringing together social scientists and practicers or activists.

Program

Monday 18 February 2014 - Birzeit University. Institute of Law. Room 243

9.00 Welcoming address and thanks
9.15-12.00

Session 1: Contestation and performance in the public spaces: which kind of critic, which kind of experimentation of social contestation?

 Chair Session: Lisa Taraki (Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Birzeit University).

• Sylvaine Bulle (CRESPPA, Université de Paris VIII). Introduction to the session. Is the ordinary critic a radical critique?
• Rania Jawad (Department of English Language and Literature, BirZeit University). Stage and Spectatorship in Palestine. The case of Bi’lin (Palestine).
• Pelin Tan (Architecture Faculty of Mardin Artuklu University, Turkey). Urban Communing in Conflict. The case of Turkish contestation.
• Wesam Rafidi (Department of Social Sciences, Bethlehem University). The nature of the relationship between the political Egyptians revolutionary song and the masses movements in Tahrir square.

Questions and debate
Break

14.00-16.00

Session 2: Ordinary cultures, intimacy and gestures as social and critical expressions. The construction of some musical and corporal languages (Lebanon, Palestine and Mediterranean bank).

Chair Session: Majdi Al-Malki (Social and Behavioral Sciences, Birzeit University)

• Nicolas Puig (URMIS-IRD). Critical Sounds from the Periphery. Palestinian Electro-rap in Lebanon.
• Farah Saleh (Dancer and Choreographer). On art production as a form of daily protest.
• Rana Bishara (painter, graphic artist, and performing artist). Installation artist.
• Moslih Kanaaneh (Social and Behavioral Sciences, Birzeit University). The National Identity of Contemporary Music in the Palestinian Society.
• Gilles Suzanne (Université d’Aix-Marseille, III), Events in Mediterranean Bank.

Questions and debate
17.00-19.00 Performance, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center- Ramallah.

Tuesday 19 February 2014 - Birzeit University. Insitute of Law. Room 243

9.00-12.00

Session 3: Streets politics. The role of the art in the cognitive and didactic knowledge on the public domain.

Chair Session: Sylvaine Bulle, ( CRESPPA, Université de Paris VIII).

• Abaher El Sakka (Social and Behavioral Sciences), Birzeit University, Approaches on the Palestinian public space.
• Yasid Anani (Department of Architecture. Birzeit University). Schizophrenia, the Urban Experience and Temporal Art Interventions.
• Abdul-Rahim Al-Shaikh (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies, Birzeit University), Re-membered Memories. Place Names in the Palestinian Visual Imagination.
• Esmail Nashif (Palestinian anthropologist and writer), Rules of Creation: The Institutionalization of the Palestinian Plastic Art field.

Questions and debate
12.00-12.30.
A theoretical perspective from the seminar.

• Christophe Traïni (Institut d’Etudes Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence). Sensitizing devices: Between esthetic and contestation.

Break
14.00-15.00
Special Round table. Experimentation in /vs Academic  ?
Chair Session: Ala Alazzeh (Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Birzeit University) with:

• Asma Ghanem and Stormtrap Asifeh, Artists,
• Rula Khoury, Art Director, Sakakini Center,
• Hafez Omar, Visual Artist,
• Reem Shielh, Artist,
• Palestinians activists

Conference in Arabic, English and French, (with translation).