The Infiltrators

When:  July 1, 2016 at 7.00 p.m.
Where: Balling Hall NTK

Maayan Sheleff is an independent curator based in Tel Aviv. Her projects involve the exploration of participatory practices through new media, the moving image and performance while examining the borders between art and activism.

In her talk she will discuss “The Infiltrators”, an exhibition she curated at Artport Tel Aviv in 2014, with the participation of Daniel Landau, Paul Poet, Ghana Think Tank and Documentary Embroidery. The Infiltrators examines the local and global state of asylum seekers and refugees through works created with the participation of communities of asylum seekers in Israel and elsewhere in the world.

In Israel, the term "infiltrators" is used to describe the transgression of the country's political borders in order to commit a terrorist act. At the same time this term is commonly used to refer to Africans who have crossed the border from Africa into Israel, fixing the status of border crossers as that of liminal subjects, who remain trapped between here and there, citizens of a no place.

The exhibition title plays a double role, since it aspires to look at the included art projects as constituting an act of infiltration. The featured artists attempt to undermine existing stereotypes by enacting different forms of participation, thus questioning common perceptions and destabilizing power relations.

Sheleff will discuss the project and show videos from the works of Daniel Landau (Resident Alien, 2014), Paul Poet ( Ausländer Raus! Schlingensief’s Container, 2001), and Ghana Think Tank (GTT in Tel Aviv, 2014).

Maayan Sheleff is an independent curator and the artistic advisor of The Art Cube Artists Studios in Jerusalem. In the past she was the Curator at the CCA and at Line 16 Gallery, Tel Aviv, as well as assistant Director at the international Curatorial Studies Program of the Kibbutzim College of Education. Sheleff curated various projects in different venues and in the public sphere, among them at the Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Madre museum in Naples, Herzlyia Museum in Israel, Shift festival in Basel, and the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem. She was the co-curator of various exhibitions in Israel and internationally, among them the first Tel Aviv- Yaffo Biennial. Sheleff teaches curating and social and political art practices in the Kibbutzim College of Education, Tel Aviv, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and the Sam Spiegel Film and Television school, Jerusalem, and at Sapir College in Sderot, and guest lectures in many other institutions.

Web:
http://cargocollective.com/INFILTRATORS

With support from the Embassy of the State of Israel in the Czech Republic.