[Reader-list] Azadi . Cabaret Voltaire 19 Jan 2012

[francesca recchia]

Dear all

Hope this message finds you well.

I am writing to share with you a small project I am working on with Antonio Scarponi (www.conceptualdevices.com) on the concept of Azadi, freedom. 

Here below are the information about the event/project.
It would be wonderful if you could join us in the discussion and help us spreading the voice!

Look forward to hearing from you
Much love
francesca

Azadi is a Persian word that means freedom, liberty, liberation, independence.  The word has a long history and a beautiful geography.  Its roots can be traced back to more than three thousand years ago, to the ancient Avestan language.  From Persia, Azadi started travelling: it went far and reached Afghanistan, Pakistan and India where it seeped into the local languages and it is now of common use in Farsi, Kurdish, Pashto, Urdu and Hindi. 
Azadi is about liberation as much as it is about liberty and hence signifies both the struggle for and the achievement of freedom; it does not simply describe a target, but embodies a process.  Azadi helps therefore reflecting on the relation between freedom and liberation, on the necessary struggle that is implied in the idea of the achievement of freedom and on the sense of a collective responsibility that such a struggle requires.
 
The word, however, has ever too often been appropriated in the political discourse as a symbol of Islamist ideology, separatist movements and extremist politics. 
But is it so? How many people do use the word Azadi in a non ideological way? What is the power of this word and what are the contradictions it carries?
 
From the perspectives of design and geopolitics, Antonio Scarponi and Francesca Recchia will engage with these questions addressing the manipulation of innocence and the ways in which ideological interpretations "shape" meaning and reality.  In a participatory manner, the conversation will take place on the 19th of January from 2 to 6 pm CET at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich as part of the exhibition The Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism.  The event is both physical and virtual as it takes the shape of an Internet happening through Skype and Twitter (hash-tag #Azadi) opening the debate to different people who have been engaged in the struggle for Azadi and for whom Azadi is a daily word with a political - rather that politicised - meaning. 
Participants both present at the venue and connected virtually are invited to contribute images, thoughts, reflections, ideas that would be gathered in a series of pamphlets in .pdf format to be assembled ina DIY manner and downloadable under the Creative Common licence.

To join us:
On Twitter: @scarponio and @kiccovich Hash-tag #Azadi
On Skype: antonioscarponi and kiccovich
 

 
francesca recchia

it +39 338 166 3648
in +91 998 670 7194


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