Mozambique

^{Posted on Thursday, 7th February, 2008}

Video Art Workshop

^{Maputo / Mozambique}

^{Multiple ideas would well articulate a constantly changing world’s vision and open Imaginary Lines to individual experiences in which the validation of the individual emotional and creative spaces can be reclaimed and legitimised within a collective public environment. This, however, would be based on the principle that cultural pluralism promotes tolerance, acceptance and mutual respect.}

^{Given this reflection, it is only when the individual liberty is achieved, that this cultural multiplicity can unfold in continuous proposals that will point out a new way of creative thinking to articulate various interpretations of one’s contemporariness borrowed from a not yet well defined modernity.}

^{Participants viewing one of the videos during LINHAIMAGINARIA II}

^{The difference between peoples is neither biological nor racial but basically cultural. Differences arise from the well defined process of collective experiences, conversations and encounters, cultural constructions invented and re- invented to serve particular objectives defined on particular time frames. But it is important to note that culture is not only the collective image of ourselves but also the collective image of the other, where authenticity is formulated on the free expression, the expressivity within an intellectual and artistic debate of methods of education and continuity, and on renovated strategies of the social structure, where the diversity of opinions has to be ruled by an objective, pragmatic and critical arguement.}

^{LINHAIMAGINÁRIA , Imaginary  Line, is therefore designed to  be a cultural agent of visibly shared experiences underpinning the fundamental objective to provide the necessary instruments to investigate the meta-narratives of Globalisation – as opposed to concentrating on the local - that are critically engaged on the modern / post-modern and contemporary discourses. LINHAIMAGINÁRIA will present the conceptual merit of cultural diversity as a critical tool to the idea of homogenisation that prevails as a global and cultural zone of activity. In order to grasp the complexity and cultural implication of poverty, we need to construct our individuality as an integral element of shared identity and social responsibility and render it as part of our discourses in global politics. This creates an individual identity within a secure geographic and emotional reference, defining the sense of place from which all our relationships with the world are contextualised and implemented.  In this search of a new creative and cultural vocabulary - that is able to articulate global and local discourses centred on identities - is a critical priority to endorse social differences, security and education.}

^{Participants discussing the videos during LINHAIMAGINARIA II}

^{These experiences, captured on video and electronic art in Mozambique, is designed to create spaces of free transit, to experiment on new creative languages able to indicate possibilities of social intervention. The focus is the encounter with the frontiers of representation and its relations as a starting point for critical investigation and interpretation.}

^{This project admits the Other as a possibility of re-creation, where the audience constructs its own understandings in participating actively, absorbing the different components associated to the project, in form of lectures, video performances, public projections and video screenings. The project will also search creative voices marginalized by the imposition of international and national art markets and will encourage individual and collective initiatives where the relationship between creativity and society would be a bench mark for continuity and renewal.}

^{References: Andries Botha, Amazwi Abesifazane project}

^{Miguel Petchkovsky}

^{Curator and conceptualizer LINHAIMAGINÁRIA}

^{To comment on this article, click here}