The departure point will be Rudsel Martinus’ short film Karnival (1983), documenting carnival in the Dutch city of Utrecht. The panel will serve as a lead up discussion to Gario's upcoming performance our playing mas…ses.

Panel: Quinsy Gario, Rudsel Martinus, Thomas Talawa Prestø and Claire Tancons
Moderated by Roberto Neri

In English

18:30 bar open
19:30 screening Karnival (1983) by Rudsel Martinus
20:00 talk
21:30 last drinks
22:00 beurscafé closes

WHO'S WHO?

QUINSY GARIO is an activist as well as a visual and performance artist from the Dutch Caribbean. His most well-known work, Zwarte Piet Is Racisme (2011–2012), critiqued the general knowledge surrounding the racist Dutch figure Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and. Quinsy has an academic background in Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies and is a graduate of the Master Artistic Research programme at The Hague’s Royal Academy of Art.

RUDSEL MARTINUS (Curacao, °1956) is a visual artist and educator from the Dutch-Caribbean. After studying painting, drawing, crafts and art history in the Netherlands (SOL-Utrecht and the Amsterdam School of the Arts), he moved back to Curacao in 1989 to start a practice as a visual artist and to teach work in the academic field for more than 27 years, including at Art Academy, Educational Academy and University of Curaçao. He retired from academia in 2016 and now focuses on his work as a visual artist and rustic furniture designer.

CLAIRE TANCONS is a curator, writer, and researcher invested in the postcolonial politics of art production and exhibition. She co-curated EN MAS’: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean, a cross-Caribbean performance commission series, touring exhibition, and publication project (2015), and Hétéronomonde, the inaugural edition of the Tout-Monde: Caribbean Contemporary Arts Festival in Miami (2018). She curated Up Hill Down Hall for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London (2014), and was the artistic director of Tide by Side, Faena Forum, Miami Beach (2016), and etcetera: a civic ritual, Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse (2017). Tancons has curated for biennials including those in Gwangju (2008), New Orleans (2009), Cape Town (2009), Bénin (2012), Gothenburg (2013), and recently, Sharjah (2019). Tancons also publishes for and speaks at artistic and academic venues, as well as teaches, more recently art history as the inaugural Mellon Global Curatorial Fellow at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (2020). She is the recipient of fellowships, grants, and awards from the Andy Warhol Foundation, Prince Claus Fund, Foundation for Arts Initiatives, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and Creative Capital. She is at work on her book Roadworks on processional performance. Born in Guadeloupe, she works in situ and lives in diaspora.

THOMAS TALAWA PRESTØ: Thomas Talawa Prestø is the founder and artistic director of Tabanka African & Caribbean Peoples Dance Ensemble in Oslo, Norway. The company and its associated movement technique, the Talawa Technique, has been 21 years in the making. The Talawa Technique is one of few fully codified techniques drawing from Africa and the Diaspora. Tabanka Dance Ensemble is northern Europes largest full time Black dance company. The company works outside the western canon of art production creating highly kinetic contemporary work drawing from African, Caribbean and Diasporan movement practices. The companies and techniques slogan and core principle is Ancient Power - Modern Use.

ROBERTO NERI is an Afro-Brazilian entrepreneur, producer, communicator specialized in cultural management and new media. In 2019, he launched the first Afro-Brazilian TV channel, heading the content department at TRACE TV. Professional in the entertainment industry, Roberto analyzes the place of the afro-descendant population in the new artistic productions in Brazil and in South America.