The exhibition «Citizen Alien» curated by artist Michalis Argyrou, contains an installation and video projections from the long durational performance piece of Rafika Chawishe, Astrid Rondero and Fernada Valadez that took place in Mexico in September 2018.
In the frame of the 50 years from the Tlatelolco massacre, the durational performance, was created in collaboration with Mexican artists Astrid Rondero, and Fernanda Valadez and is inspired by immigrant Alcira Soust Scaffo. The university campus was invaded and occupied by the army on 18 September 1968. Some witnesses maintain that Soust helped students to escape and put verses of León Felipe on the loudspeakers as a peaceful protest.
The fear of being imprisoned, led her to remain in a bathroom in the Humanities Tower, where she stayed for fourteen days that the occupation lasted. This fact transformed her into a legend of the student movement, which came to consider her the immigrant that “resisted” the military occupation. That event reminds us many common incidents in the time of history worldwide, like for example the Athens Polytechnic uprising.
The performer Rafika Chawishe chose to re-enact this act of resistance as a current manifesto, living for many days, without eating, in the midst of ruins, which depict an aesthete sitting among history’s scattered fragments, used as a metaphor for the unconscious as a ruined landscape waiting to be excavated.
Her aim was to re-shape the space in a mural full of signs voiced out powerfully over time, in a continuous global battle, against fascism, discrimination and violence. Those signs were collected from protests and movements that have been held in Mexico, Greece and worldwide from the notorious times of 1968 until the current crucial times.
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Information
«Citizen Alien»
(Digital Video, Color and Monoplane from Performance «The Lonely Citizen», Rafika Chawishe, Mexico 2018)
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Curated by: Michalis Argyrou, Sound Design-Composition by Constantine Skourlis
Idea / Concept, Installation, Construction of the long durational performance piece: Rafika Chawishe, Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez.
Performance artist: Rafika Chawishe
Filming: Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez / Editing: Panagiotis Papafragos. Production: Enaguas Cine, Lineculture. Under the auspices of the National Museum of Contemporary Art . With the support of the Athens School of Fine Arts, The National Centre of Audiovisual Media and Communication – EKOME S.A, the Ministry of Culture and Sports and Enaguas Cine
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«Citizen Alien» Exhibition
Rafika Chawishe
Athens Fine Arts School
Tositsa and Notaras 13, Exarchia
Opening Day: Friday 30 November 2018 at 19. 30
Duration: 30 November – 13 December 2018
Opening hours: 12.00-20.00
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