Dreaming The Cities: Transnational Collaboration For Decolonizing Media Arts
CONCEPT Can the internet be a medium where artists from vastly different backgrounds and countries collaborate in a way that shifts social and cultural narrative? This project aims to promote digital experiences that create bridges between artists and cities that otherwise will never meet through a co-designed process of 3 online encounters and a final meet with audiovisual performances. Through a series of meetings, the participants to know each other better, increase their knowledge about the other city’s cultural and creative context, how the other work and how the needs are met through innovation and creativity.
In this first edition, the project connected the millenary city of Lahore, Pakistan to the multicultural metropolis of São Paulo, Brazil. Three pairs of artists representing each city met throughout 4 sessions of dialogue and exchange of knowledge on creative modes and local cultures that allowed to creatively imagine and speculate possible urban futures and resulted in artistic performances presented to the public in a live session. Dreaming The Cities Lahore x São Paulo was produced by Linha 3 (BR), rearts (PK) with the support of DICE – Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies, British Council.
Participating Artists: Jannat Ali, Novissimo Edgar, Romaisa Fawad, Coletivo Coletores, Koral Alvarenga, Amna Riaz.
The second edition of the project connected Lahore and Karachi with Paris. Two pairs of artists representing each city met throughout 3 sessions of dialogue and developed collaborative artworks in response to these discussions. Dreaming The Cities Lahore x Paris x Karachi is produced with the support of French Embassy in Pakistan.
Participating Artists: Emil Hasnain, Audrey Richard-Laurent, Marylou Petot, Areeb Tariq