Conceived by Chanika Svetvilas
at Columbus Park, Brooklyn Heights Suitcases on Tour!
October 8, 9, 15, 16 (Rain date Oct. 23)

The Installation Red, orange, and yellow suitcases, echoing the high security alert levels that have become a part of daily life, will be carried into the Columbus Park, Brooklyn and paraded around the plaza by invited individuals arriving from the north, south, east, and west and converging around the Christopher Columbus statue. Twenty individuals are being sought to carry the suitcases into Columbus Park tracing a choreographed walk. The suitcases echo paranoia and suspicion associated with unattended luggage during a time of heightened security. The suitcases planted in front of the courthouses reflects a contradiction between the freedom of travel and migration and the restrictions of immigration and border crossing as reflected in Patriot Act I and II enforcement by USA Dept. of Homeland Security. The images portrayed on the surfaces of the suitcases not only question contradictions or injustices of indefinite detention and racial profiling, concerns the courts have been struggling to comprehend since the 9/11 tragedy, but also the impact on families and the relativity of borders and national identity.

Click here if you would like to participate in Suitcases on Tour. Forms must be filled out and submitted no later than Tuesday, September 7, 2004.

As conventioneers and activists pack up their bags and puppets, join... EXTREME EXCHANGE For National issues. Multiple views. Sept. 3 and 4th, 2004 At the HERE Arts Center, 145 Sixth Avenue

Providing equal vigor to contrasting perspectives. Seeking to open the minds of liberal and conservative to an honest dialogue beyond the rhetoric.

FEATURING: Staged Readings:

NICKEL AND DIMED By Joan Holden, based on the best selling book by Barbara Ehrenreich. A comic and direct look at the spirit and tribulations of minimum wage earners and one successful journalist's failure to survive Denny's and Wal-Mart. A New York premiere.

INDIANS By Arthur Kopit Kopit's classic fantasy debunks the mythology of the Wild West as a purposeful fabrication meant to promote the conquering of the West and the destruction of Native Americans.

PLUS! THE INNOVATIVE X-PLAY SERIES Groups add to a complete debate by randomly selecting a viewpoint on a national issue and take under a week to create and perform a short work supporting that view. Works serve as counterpoint to each other.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Visit WWW.EXTREMEEXCHANGE.ORG
Write info@extremeexchange.org
Call 212-576-8817

If you are an artist or part of an artist's collective and your work critiques or responds to what is going on politically in your area or elsewhere, we at National Coalition Against Censorship would like to see it! Art Now is an effort to unite artists across America and abroad to create a network of free flowing artistic and political perspectives. If you would like to submit your work please contact svetlana@ncac.org. Information about the artist and their work will be posted in this section. Our goal is to unveil the richness of artistic dissent throughout the world, ranging from global high profile art movements to the diverse local individual dissenters.

Zines - the self-published works of writers - has been a mainstay of political, social and artistic expression for many years now. But perhaps its time to expand the audience and turn the pen into pixel. Art Now would like to send a special request to the anarchists, activists, and hipsters who are photocopying their heart out to pass out their zines and pervade society. We would like to help you with your cause. Send Art Now your zine and will will scan it onto our site. It's time modernize this invaluable tradition and bridge the gap from zine to blog. Let us help you. Send your zine to Art Now, National Coalition Against Censorship, 275 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001.

Aileen Bassis is not a newcomer to NCAC. Previously, she had an installation reflecting on the catastrophe of 9/11/01 featured on our website. Presently, her work deals with issues of immigration, and the vestiges of paranoia that still ruminate in our post 9/11 country at war. Her work also touches upon matters of violence and child abuse. Here are some samples of her work:

 

Keith F states that his work "suggests that within the physicality of art lies the origins of dissent, transformation and [the conflict between existence and] ideological structures of thought." Somewhere at the crossroads between Modigliani's portraiture and Picasso's Guernica lies Keith's sensual, vibrant and painterly works. Below are several samples, but you can check-out much more at his website..

Writers and musicians Candice Vance Suneel Mubayi, Victor Jara and Arsenia have been turning out their Zine entitled Bands Against Bush (B.A.B.). With such novel concepts as "artists deserve a living wage," and "public prayer to a worker," B.A.B. is clearly one dutiful, imaginistic mag. The group also perform around New York City gearing up for when they take on the Republican National Convention in 2004. Here are some excerpts from the zine:

 

 

 

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