Saturday, October 07, 2006
Free speech in Chicago, no matter what the imams say
Myrtus is spreading the word about an art exhibition in Chicago, opening today, that is meant to provide a venue for artists whose work has been pushed out of other settings by protests from Muslims. The exhibition has a blog, "No Shackles," which includes a short history of the project:
Even in the Age of Information, it would seem that not all information is created equal. We have seen this in the closing of a successful 3-year-old production of Mozart's opera 'Idomeneo', because as Berlin police said, it posed 'incalculable risk' of inciting Islamic fundamentalists to violence. These and other acts of cultural and artistic intimidation are a stark reminder that censorship throbs with power while the lifeblood of art is wrung dry.
Last year, outrage from Muslim students led Harper College, located just outside Chicago, to remove an exhibition of works by Amir Normandi depicting the oppression women suffer in many Islamic countries. Partly in response, Normandi, an Iranian-born Muslim, has curated a new exhibition of works by local and international artists entitled, 'Desire No Shackles/ Imagine No Borders', to examine oppression, and the notion of borders in Islam and other contexts.
The community of art-loving Chicago-residing readers of TigerHawk is a small one, but it does exist (you know who you are), so consider this a public service announcement.
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Oct 07, 04:38:00 PM:
I'm passing this on to all my Chicago readers. Thanks for posting this!
