Sans Papiers? Video screening and Tanja Ostojić in conversation with Katarzyna Kosmala on the other side of migration and politics of representation

Saturday 16 March 2013

5:30pm - 7:00pm: FREE (ticketed)

Venue: CCA 4 (cinema)

Ages: all

Call the CCA Box Office on 0141 352 4900

Sans Papiers (2004), a 14 min video by Serbian artist Tanja Ostojić (collaboration with David Rych), addresses the questions of the restrictive asylum laws and comments on detention spaces in a deportation center in Berlin-Kopenick, Germany, through the conversations with ethnic African, Middle Eastern, former Yugoslavian and Turkish men. ‘Otherness’ refers to a migration status, an access to citizen rights across the border of ‘no origin’.

Prof Katarzyna Kosmala critically engages with Ostojić’ practice in her new book Imagining Masculinities (Routledge, 2013), addressing politics of representation, migration and gender. By marking the parallels between national borders and the boundaries of gendered bodies, Ostojić’s work opens up spaces for rethinking of the ‘other’ through mobility and resistance. After the video screening, Prof Kosmala will discuss with Ostojić her approaches to art activism, drawing on the video Sans Papiers and her most recent work Misplaced Women? The event is presented by the University of the West of Scotland.

Tanja Ostojić is a Serbian-born, Berlin-based artist working predominantly from a migrant woman’s perspective, combining political engagement and art activism with performance and humour. She holds an interdisciplinary fellowship at the Graduate School of UDK, Berlin University of Arts. Ostojić presented her work internationally, including the Venice Biennale 2001 and 2011, Škuc Gallery Ljubljana, 2012, KUMU Art Museum Tallinn, 2011, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest  2011, ASAB, Bogotá, Colombia, 2010, MUMOK, Vienna, and Zacheta gallery Warsaw, 2010,Kusrpavillon Innsbruck 2008, ICA London 1999, Manifesta 2 Luxembourg 1998. Her videos have been screened at a number of festivals such as IFFF Dortmund /Kölon  2010, Globale Berlin 2008, Oberhausen Kurzfilm und Video Festival 2000. Ostojić participates in the Economy show at CCA  http://www.van.at/see/tanja/

Katarzyna Kosmala, PhD is Professor of Culture, Media and Visual Practice at the University of the West of Scotland, and freelance curator and art writer.

To book tickets, visit the CCA website.