October 2013 canvassing the city
•Télécharger en tant que PPTX, PDF•
2 j'aime•326 vues
For viewing only. Please do not use or share.
Recommandé
Contenu connexe
En vedette
En vedette (10)
Similaire à October 2013 canvassing the city
Similaire à October 2013 canvassing the city (14)
Dernier
Dernier (20)
October 2013 canvassing the city
- 1. Canvassing the City: Kathmandu's Translocal Cybermediated Artivist Movements Inter-Asian Connections IV Workshop -- Contemporary Art and the Inter-Asian Imaginary Rachel Amtzis FASS, NUS October 2013
- 2. BANDH SPACE VEHICLE SPACE PROTEST SPACE ART SPACE Street Claiming Politicization of the street by political parties and the state Bandhs: Protests involving demonstrations of power in the form of stoppages, often using physical force, of public and private transportation and government, business, and third sector activities.
- 3. POLITICAL PARTIES (mostly) BANDHS Street Claiming (I)
- 4. POLITICAL PARTIES/ CIVIL SOCIETY STREET PROTESTS Street Claiming (II)
- 5. GOVERNMENT (led by PM Bhattarai) ROAD WIDENING Street Claiming (III)
- 6. POLITICAL PARTIES (mostly) POLITICAL GRAFFITI Street Claiming (IV)
- 7. CIVIL SOCIETY STREET ART Street Claiming (V) Depoliticization of the street by artists
- 8. Street Art and Disaffection with Political Party Culture “We saw there was a problem on the streets because of the political slogans and commercial posters. The walls could be more beautiful, more positive energy could be reflected towards the society through the walls, you know, if everywhere on the walls there was art instead of political slogans.” – Romel, founder of street art collective Artlab “I used to see political graffiti on the street – that inspired me. Politicians are taking those public spaces to communicate their thoughts, their ideas to the public, through graffiti. So why don’t we artists take that space and talk about social and political issues?” – Kailash, founder of street art collective Artudio “It was visual pollution” – SadhuX, member of Artlab “People feel like its public land, so anyone can do anything with it, you know?” – Yuki, member of Sattya in charge of Kolor Kathmandu street art project (personal interviews, April 2013)
- 9. “Mummy told me not to do politics”
- 10. “Mummy told me not to do politics” (II)
- 11. Against negativity on the walls
- 12. For a unified, not fragmented Nepal
- 13. Positive images to inspire
- 14. “We make the nation”
- 15. “Bandh ruined my life!”
- 16. “Our house, our rights”
- 18. An artist converting the city to butterfly
- 19. Pushing Streets Past Their Limits “The road expansion is for the people who are driving the fancy cars…. [The PM] has diverted state funds into this road building drive, and how…is it going to change the literacy rate, the health?” – Sangeeta, founder and director of Siddhartha Art Gallery & Kathmandu Contemporary Arts Centre
- 20. Pushing Streets Past Their Limits (II)
- 21. Pushing Streets Past Their Limits (III) “With no public hearing, and no prior information regarding the plan, the municipality sprays the walls with the dreaded red color, followed by a series of disturbing announcements from a loud speaker. And then, suddenly, there are bulldozers widening the roads!” (Republica, Jan 16, 2013).
- 22. Pushing Streets Past Their Limits (IV)
- 23. “I have cancer and go for regular chemotherapy. But every time there was a banda, the ambulance journey from my home to the hospital used to give me nightmares. The banda enforcers would stop the ambulance and ask, “Where is the sick one?” Due to my fractured back, I am not able to lie down while travelling so I would be seated. They wouldn’t believe me and demand the driver to turn back the vehicle. It used to get so frustrating that I started asking another person to lie on the stretcher so that we would be allowed to pass. … I have a proposal: in the upcoming elections, no one should vote for parties or candidates who organise bandas. They don’t deserve to win a single seat.” (Strikers Out, Jagadish Ghimire, Kantipur, 16 March 2013) Bandhs strip the public’s right to move and work
- 24. Bandhs, Deception, & Violence
- 25. Bandhs, Deception, & Violence (II)
- 26. Bandhs, Deception, & Violence (III)
- 27. Bandhs, Deception, & Violence (IV) Bandhs cost the country US$40 million per bandh day and “Ruling political parties aren't even trying to thwart the current banda: perhaps they fancy using this priceless tool when they themselves are in opposition,” (Shakya, The Nepali Times, May 2010).
- 28. Bandhs, Deception, & Violence (V)
- 29. Expressions of dissent against bandhs “Bandh is the height of criminalisation in politics,” - rights activist Jyoti Baniya (as quoted in “Bandhs deny people fundamental rights,” The Himalayan Times, April 7, 2013
- 30. Change? “Has the government ever listened to what the people want? I don’t think so. I just think that the artists have played their role, done their job and done it well. Now it’s up to the state to listen. They’re not going to listen. You see, they will only listen when it matches their interests. If what the street is saying is not what they’re thinking, nothing is going to happen.” - Sangeeta Thapa, director of Siddhartha Gallery (interviewed April 2013)
- 31. Change? (II)
- 32. Change? (III)
- 33. Change? (IV) “[W]hen the number of „likes‟ go from zero to say, 6,000, 7,000 very quickly, then you know that people are buying into that idea. And so then the media takes notice of that, and helps spread that message as well. It‟s the perception that something is happening…[W]hen Nepalese are stuck they look for some platform, and usually there [isn‟t one], so they end up in a negative platform. But if we could offer people a positive platform, and if they have that choice…most people will chose the positive platform. A good example would be the rally against Nepal bandh. All it does is on Facebook, „we‟re gonna meet at nine o clock in Thamel, and we‟re gonna defy the bandh‟. You‟re giving people a positive message, but you‟re also giving them a chance to respond positively.” – Anil Chitrakar, Nepal Unites, YouTube (2010)
Notes de l'éditeur
- Good afternoon. I’m going to discuss some aspects of my paper on street claiming activities in Kathmandu. An aspect I’ll touch on is how political parties that practice excessive bandh-calling unintentionally cultivate among the public attitudes of disgust with and distrust of these political parties. I’ll also talk about street claiming by the state in its road widening campaign, and how civil society activists, artists, and others among the urban public communicate their opposition to bandh calling, road widening, political graffiti and the general political takeover of public space.
- During the past few years artists in the Kathmandu valley have begun communicating their opposition to bandh calling, road widening, political graffiti and the general political and commercial takeover of public space. Daily life in Nepal is heavily politicized, particularly in the way that people interact with the street. Kathmandu streets are under continuous contestations of ownership by myriad actors whose space claiming activities inspire overt and covert praise, condemnation, and counter-protest. They are spaces of protest marches and demonstrations, spaces where political groups force the exclusion of vehicular traffic and the cessation of daily work , spaces where the state reacts to private encroachment with public expansion, and spaces of political graffiti and wall art.
- Political parties showcase their power by denying regular citizens the right to move and work. They assert their control over the streets, and thus the city’s economic activity, by calling and enforcing bandhs, which are forced stoppages of transportation and shutdowns of schools, businesses and other institutions. The government tolerates bandhs because it is made up of politicians who utilize them for their own purposes when their party is in opposition. “Strikes make it impossible for the sick to get to hospital. Businesses close, wage earners lose their bread and butter, students miss their classes, and people cannot buy daily supplies, such as milk for their children. Everyone suffers,” writes BhagirathBasnet in Republica this April.
- Street demonstrations typically feature marches and sit-ins and are sometimes combined with bandhs. These street claiming activities are carried out by a wide spectrum of political and civil society groups.
- While the government has not forcibly objected to the temporary takeover of the streets by political parties, it has transformed the capital’s streets with a controversial and authoritarian road widening drive. The multi-party, post civil war transition government, under Maoist party leader Dr.BaburamBhattarai, has asserted its control over an increasingly anarchic urban environment by bulldozing structures they claim have been illegally encroaching public space since 1977, when a road expansion plan was approved but not carried out.
- Political graffiti is another means through which Nepal’s politicians attempt to own urban spaces. Slogans, proclamations, and other propaganda are painted across walls, sides of buildings, gates, and other streetside structures. These painted slogans transform public space into political party space, injecting politics into the city’s visual life and deepening the already heavy politicization of daily life in Kathmandu.
- Street artists were motivated to create wall murals in reaction to the negative aspects of political culture manifested on walls in the form of graffiti. Along with opposition to political party graffiti, street art has expressed anti-bandh and and anti-road widening sentiments. Street artists assert the independent citizen’s right to the walls, frequently reclaiming these spaces from political parties who had commissioned commercial artists to paint slogans and announcements on them.
- In personal interviews and in the press, street artists expressed their dissatisfaction with political parties’ practice of having their proclamations painted on public walls and with the country’s politicians themselves. “This is our way of reaching out to a larger Nepali public and saying we will not stand and see our city get more damaged than it already is…There is so much filth in Nepali politics these days. It is constantly abused by those in power,” explains Yuki, the creator of Kolor Kathmandu, a street art project by the media arts collective Sattya, in an interview in The Nepali Times this April.
- Expressions against negative behavior in politics is a common theme of Kathmandu’s street art. Street artist Mr K covered up a political slogan, which can be seen faintly in red beneath these large black letters, with the statement “Mummy told me not to do politics.”
- Mr K says he feels proud for not voting in the last election, and won’t vote in the next one if the same people run. Nepali politicians “are just playing games,” claims Mr K. “They don’t have vision, they don’t have thought.” “They are making fools of the people.”
- Mr K also painted this cheerful portrait over political graffiti. He explained that he wanted people to be exposed to a laughing face that would put them in a good mood, rather than an angry political statement that seems to shout at them from the walls as they pass by. Mr K, like many street mural artists, feels political graffiti contributes to negative moods among the public and exacerbates a culture of blaming, where Nepalis, particularly politicians, blame each other for the country’s problems, rather than working together to solve them.
- Yuki, who conceptualized Kolor Kathmandu, explained that the project seeks to promote national unity. Local and international street artists are collaborating to produce 75 murals that represent the nation’s 75 districts painted on publicly visible spaces in Kathmandu. The political parties, as part of their efforts to write a new constitution, are considering dividing Nepal into ethnic provinces; Yuki sees Kolor Kathmandu as a way of paying tribute to a nation that is unified amidst a multiplicity of ethnicities, languages, and cultures. This mural for the district Sindhuli depicts an event in Nepal’s history when Sindhuli residents repelled the British military by pelting them with oranges.
- Members of street art collective Artlab are currently working on a project called Prasad, painting murals of inspirational Nepalis who have contributed to the betterment of their nation. This mural depicts PushpaBasnet, who won CNN’s Hero of the Year award in 2012 for her work to improve the lives of children of prisoners. Artlab aims for these murals to inspire Nepalis, particularly the young, to work to make the country’s future brighter.
- The same theme is present in a mural by street art collective Artudio called “We make the nation”. One of the images in this mural is a newspaper with positive headlines such as Nepal becoming a top exporter of electricity. Kailash, the founder of Artudio, hopes that this image motivates everyday citizens to think positively and try to make headlines such as these closer to reality.
- Street art in the form of anti-bandh stencils are visible in many areas of Kathmandu,
- …as are stencils that read “our house, our rights”, which call attention to the road widening campaign’s disregard for people’s legitimate claims to the land onto which the road will be expanded.
- Mr K’s stencils of pigs on the wall of a house that has been chopped in half by bulldozers are another critique of the road expansion drive. Mr K equates the bulldozers with pigs, which charge into areas, strewing them with dirt even as they clear away rubble.
- Street murals are not the only form of silent protest against bandhs and road widening. Self-taught artist Milan Rai’s art project, An Artist Converting the City to Butterfly, was inspired by a consequence of the government’s road widening drive – which has been ongoing since November 2011 – the chopping of many trees that line the roadsides. When Milan came across a large stump of a tree during a walk, he felt incredibly sad and decided to highlight the city’s disappearing greenery by affixing white paper butterflies on trees, walls, and other public spaces. Milan’s butterflies have gone viral, spreading to the US, Europe and other parts of Asia through his Facebook page.
- Widened roads privilege certain groups of Kathmandu-ites over others. Vehicle users are given priority over landowners, as well as those who appreciate the natural environment and architectural heritage.
- Many trees have been chopped down and traditionally constructed buildings have been demolished to open up the roads so more and larger motorized vehicles can pass more swiftly through.
- The campaign’s legality is questionable and residents have held small-scale anti-road expansion protests, but to no avail. The armed police accompanying bulldozer crews during demolitions have been an effective deterrent to civilian resistance.
- Gallery director Sangeeta describes the drive as having “no respect for culture.” She says it expresses “this total disregard for people, for families, for histories.” “The fact that the state can come in and break and bulldoze and not give compensation.” “First they started a rumor that the World Bank was giving the money for all the expansions, Sangeeta adds. Then “The World Bank said ‘World Bank will never fund a project which is so careless and so insensitive to people’s rights.’”
- People’s rights are also violated during bandhs. Cancer patient JagadishGhimire writes in Kantipur this March that “The entire country has to suffer because of bandas. The economy is bought to a standstill. Millions of students are kept away from their classes putting their futures at stake. Daily-wage labourers and their families have to go to bed hungry. And those who are ill are deprived of timely treatment. Tourists are left stranded. Fresh milk, fruits, and vegetables go to waste while children cry for food. There is a sudden price hike of daily commodities and farmers and consumers have to bear the brunt. The violence and vandalism that take place during strikes costs us millions every year.”
- Bandhs, most effective in urban areas because of their high concentration of businesses, government, educational, and other public and private institutions, and heavy use of local transport, rely on deceptions and violence to maximize their effectiveness. Deception occurs in the organizers’ threat of violence in situations where they lack sufficient manpower to act against everyone who violates the bandh, as well as in their often dubious claim that the bandh is necessary in order to move the government to act in their favor, that they are on the righteous side of the disagreement, and that the bandh is the only and best way to take action. Violence is often not an empty threat, however, as many vehicles and even bicycles have been vandalized and passengers and drivers manhandled for violating bandhs.
- Deception by the public also occurs as a covert form of resistance against bandhs. Often shops will simply appear to be closed while actually remaining open to known customers. Drivers have been known to disguise their automobiles as wedding or tourist cars, covering them with flowers or plastering them with “Tourist Only” signs.
- Bandhs have become so deeply a part of daily life in Nepal that the plot of an acclaimed, crowdfunded local film, Highway (2012), centers around the efforts of passengers on a cross-country bus journey from eastern Nepal to Kathmandu to pass through bandh enforced areas - disguising themselves as a wedding party.
- Moreover, the state practices deception in its response to bandhs; outwardly, it opposes bandhs, but in reality it accepts them as a political negotiation strategy. This is because, aside from the post-war state being weak and ineffectual, every political party has held bandhs and government members and leaders organize them when they are part of the opposition. Although the police occasionally arrest bandh enforcers when they are caught vandalizing vehicles or injuring bandhdefiers, they do not oppose the bandh itself.
- Overuse of bandhs as an insurgent tactic has made it less of a revolutionary act and more of a self-serving attack against the working public and schoolchildren, unintended targets, unlike the state or a rival political party. The economic consequences of bandhs are severe, and are the main motivating factor in the state’s eventual usual partial to total acquiescence to bandh organizers’ demands. Because bandhdefiers won’t be compensated for any vandalism or harm they suffer, the public is loath to go about their regular activities during a bandh. The act of individual members of the public exercising their right to traverse the city by bicycle, motorcycle, bus, taxi, tempo, or other public or private transport has emerged as the post-war act of rebellion. Defying a bandh against the wishes of political forces and risking violence against person and property has become a form of public political protest in its own right.
- Dramatically increasing in mid-2006, the post-civil war ubiquity of bandhs, their use for non-righteous causes, and their negative social and economic consequences have prompted many civil society actors to criticize and protest against ‘Bandh culture’. However, even though anti-bandh groups have proliferated on Facebook, bandhs continue to be called. Although there have been occasional street protests against bandhs and a motion has been filed at the Supreme Court to ban them, defiance of bandhs is typically carried out covertly, on an individual level, and more often in word than in deed. In May 2010, a Maoist party indefinite bandh was called off after six days because of street protests organized by civil society activists and business leaders that were heavily participated in by the general public. As Sangeeta of Siddhartha Gallery tells it, “Everybody was called [to Basantapur Durbar Square]. There was a gathering of 10,000 people and we all went there, and we wore our white and we walked out to [the] Square and we said ‘We don’t want bandhs anymore!’ And as we walked, next to us were Maoists with sticks – huge clubs – walking angrily in the same direction. And it was quite frightening. And when that whole event was over, when a group of people were walking home, the Maoists surrounded one group of people and beat them…” Because of the risks people take should they decide to defy a bandh, with little police protection and no compensation for injury or vandalism, bandhs continue to be carried out by political parties large and small and bitterly complied with by the public.
- Sangeeta is sceptical that street art and street protests against the corrupt and selfish behaviour of the government and political leaders will make significant progress. However, public desire and hope persists that bandhs will cease and the country’s longstanding self-centered political culture will change. This hope and desire has manifested itself in street art, which moves forward with unabated enthusiasm, as well as Occupy Baluwatar, an ongoing protest movement.
- Occupy Baluwatar is a peaceful, bandh free protest that was sparked by the public outrage that erupted in December 2012 following media reports of the robbery and rape of a returnee migrant worker by airport officials and a police constable. After 106 days of morning demonstrations near the prime minister’s residence in Baluwatar advocating justice for her and investigation into other unprosecuted assaults, rapes, and murders of women, the civil society movement won a small victory: cases have been filed against the perpetrators of what the Occupy Baluwatar has termed the TIA (which stands for Tribhuvan International Airport) rape. This would not have happened without public protest.
- The internet and social media sites in particular have been incredibly helpful to street artists and the Occupy Baluwatar movement. Artists have been able to recruit fans, patrons, and volunteers by showcasing their work on spaces like Facebook and YouTube. People have learned about the specific cases of lack of prosecution for violence against women Occupy Baluwatar has taken up through their website, Twitter, and Facebook page, and have been motivated to contribute creative protest ideas, fund the production of posters and banners, and join the demonstrators.
- Public policy activist Anil Chitrakar sees social media as a means to help anti-bandh and other positive social movements motivate and mobilize the public to reclaim their streets from self-serving and divisive political parties. Speaking in October 2011 to promote the civil society initiative Nepal Unites, he praises the counter-politics of the graffiti overlaying street murals and encourages Nepalis to work together to revitalize their neighborhoods, setting examples that more and more of the general public, disillusioned by the continuous failure and corruption of the political leadership and their parties, will eventually follow. Civil society groups should also attempt to reach out not only to the social media savvy, but to daily wage earners whose livelihoods are most negatively affected by bandhs, and who are not likely to be social media literate or to afford regular internet access. It will take the dedicated participation of concerned citizens from across the social spectrum to bring positive change to street protest culture and to the streets themselves. Thank you.