ZiM Debates 2004-2006

[ZiM DEBATES 01-08: Winter 04/Spring 05]

Public art - who's profit?

ZiM Debate is a series of lectures, presentations and discussions, with the aim to develop an ongoing discourse about topics with touch projects like ZiM - migration, cultural clashes, (loss of) identity, image culture, codes, empowerment, gentrification, urban politics, participation versus autonomy in the arts, methods and different strategies in projects related to ZiM.

Public art projects like ZiM raise a number of questions. Some of these are related to arts like who is the audience and who is part of the project or where is the borderline between a public art project and social work etc. Other questions are related to urban planning and undesirable effects such as for example social changes in a barrier. These problems are not only related to ZiM but to many public art projects in various countries. ZiM Debate will tackle these problems in general in debates on a monthly bases in fall/winter 2004/05.

ZIm Debate is a project developed by Elisabeth Mayerhofer, Paul Stepan and Daniela Swarowsky.

[ZiM DEBATES 09-15: Spring 06]

MIGRATIE IN TRANSIT

The confrontation of the 'First' with the 'Third' World in an accelerated process of globalisation

Migration once again is a globally discussed phenomenon, which is often portrayed one-sidedly from a Western point of view. This way of thinking is driven by the fear of losing control over the borders around Europe, having to give up order and social security and perhaps even property. A fear that seemed to become reality when the fences around Ceuta and Melilla were stormed by desperate African migrants.

How is this way of thinking kept alive by migrants themselves? Is Europe the Western paradise where they can get everything they ever dreamed of?

The ZiM Debates of Winter/Spring 2006 covered questions concerning migration, identity and cultural relativism. Is migration partly a result of Europe's old colonial past? What are the social and cultural consequences both for the community that leaves and the community that remains behind? Does the position of women with a migratory history change in relation to already existing structures? How do migrants and natives experience the images of fear which migration conjures? And finally: does migration lead to liberation or rather to a limitation of democratic freedom?