Today’s guest speaker is Hamja Ahsan an artist, writer, curator and activist. A multi-disciplinary artist, his practice has involved conceptual writing, building archives, performance, video, sound and making zines. Key reoccurring themes revolving in his work has been explorations around state crime, contemporary Islamophobia, repression of civil liberties under the so-called War on Terror, and prison solidarity. Hamja is the author of Shy Radicals: The Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert
https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/a-decolonial-introvert-revolution-interview-with-hamja-ahsan/
https://bookworks.org.uk/publishing/shop/shy-radicals-the-antisystemic-politics-of-the-militant-introvert-2017-fourth-edition-2020/
These are links to Hamja’s exhibitions entitled I don’t belong here taken from a Radiohead lyric:
https://www.mglc-lj.si/eng/exhibitions_and_events/hamja_ahsan_i_don_039_t_belong_here_/236
Hamja talks about Arlo parks cover of Creep by Radiohead which he uses in the Shy Radicals film and how the lyrics change dramatically when Arlo sings them.
Hamja talks about diyzinebank a nomadic zine library collected by Hanja Ahsan over 25 years.
Hamja talks about solitary confinement and about the Angola 3 case which I knew nothing about and also their involvement with Free Talha movement which is better explained in this link:
https://freetalha.org/about/
http://freetalha.org/
Talha Ahsan is a British-born poet, translator and human rights campaigner with Asperger syndrome who was extradited to the US on 5th October 2012 after over 6 years of detention without charge, trial or prima-facie evidence.
He had never set foot on US soil prior to his extradition…
Hamja fights tirelessly for his brothers release.
Herman’s house was mentioned https://www.amdoc.org/watch/hermanshouse/
Herman Wallace may be the longest-serving prisoner in solitary confinement in the United States — he’s spent more than 40 years in a 6-by-9-foot cell in Louisiana. Imprisoned in 1967 for a robbery he admits, he was subsequently sentenced to life for a killing he vehemently denies. Herman’s House is a moving account of the remarkable expression his struggle found in an unusual project proposed by artist Jackie Sumell. Imagining Wallace’s “dream home” began as a game and became an interrogation of justice and punishment in America. The film takes us inside the duo’s unlikely 12-year friendship, revealing the transformative power of art.
https://www.frieze.com/article/why-covid-19-might-be-our-chance-reimagine-arts
Hamja Ahsan, Shy Radicals: The Anti-Systemic Politics of the Militant Introvert , 2017. Courtesy: Book Works
“A wave of withdrawal is reshaping the political landscape … Tremors can be felt from the global Shy Underground… From the boardroom to the bedroom.’ As doors close during the lockdown, shuttered exhibitions, theatres, cinemas and clubs have left culture in a lurch. It’s time, then, to rethink the nature of that cultural experience itself.
In a way, the world is catching up with the vision of artist Hamja Ahsan’s manifesto, Shy Radicals (2017). Ahsan’s book called for a ‘pan-Shyistic’ society of introverts, the asocial and the reclusive. Challenging what he calls ‘extrovert supremacy’, Ahsan proposes a speculative Walden pond for our moment of hyper-visibility, livestreams and influencers. This state would ensure its citizens ‘freedom from small talk; freedom from coercive visual distraction; freedom from enforced jollity’. Its constitution proclaims: ‘No one shall be required to attend or perform at social gatherings.’
When Ahsan published Shy Radicals, it was intended as serious satire. But, seen today, it gets at something larger: that this moment of ‘enforced extroversion’, which privileges those who speak loudly at meetings and those who beam themselves on screens, may only exacerbate existing disparities. And, as some galleries shut forever while others will reopen, we’re seeing how those same disparities have long marked cultural production, a realm in which visibility itself is monetized.”
BY PABLO LARIOS IN OPINION | 07 APR 20
Hamja talks about how his art has influenced others and also crossed into other artists work including conditions such as Autism, Neurodiversity and dyspraxia:
https://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/publishing/awkwoods-daniel-olivers-dyspraxic-adventures-in-participatory-performance/
Hamja is then answering questions about his practice and mentions Manic Street Preachers which I then immediately have a conversation with him about as I have a fellow obsession.
I find Hamja to be an erudite, intelligent artist who is inspiring so much that I have ordered his book and communicated directly through Instagram.
Rusty'sArtWerk 