Protocinema

First launched in 2020 in response to Covid-19 and the clo­sure of arts venues around the world, ​“A Few in Many Places” is a the­mat­ic group exhi­bi­tion that takes place simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at mul­ti­ple venues, across five regions . In 2021, from May through July, the exhi­bi­tion will be open in six glob­al cities: New York, Unit­ed States; San Juan, Puer­to Rico; Seoul, South Korea; Bangkok, Thai­land; Istan­bul, Turkey; and Guatemala City, Guatemala. Curat­ed by Protocinema’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Cura­tor Mari Spir­i­to and Abhi­jian Toto (Co-Direc­tor, the For­est Cur­ricu­lum), each install­ment will oper­ate under a cen­tral cura­to­r­i­al direc­tive while respond­ing to its own local socio-polit­i­cal cir­cum­stances. Each satel­lite of the exhi­bi­tion will be pro­duced by a local cura­tor and fea­ture works by local artists. This exhi­bi­tion mod­el allows engage­ment under var­i­ous con­di­tions of lock­down or crises, while also elim­i­nat­ing the need for flights, ship­ping, and oth­er modes of con­sump­tion typ­i­cal of arts exhi­bi­tions.

In New York, ​“A Few in Many Places” will take place at Colonels Row House on Gov­er­nors Island, a place of nat­ur­al refuge dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Pro­duced by local cura­tor Lila Nazemi­an in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Var­tan Avakian, Yas­mine Eid-Sab­bagh and Kris­tine Khouri from the Arab Image Foun­da­tion (AIF), the exhi­bi­tion will be pre­sent­ed in con­junc­tion with the the Spring work­shop at the Hagop Kevorkian Cen­ter for Near East­ern Stud­ies, NYU, titled ​“Unrav­el­ling Col­lec­tions and Prac­tices: Rights, Mate­ri­al­i­ties, and Pho­to­graph­ic Agency at the Arab Image Foun­da­tion (AIF).” The exhi­bi­tion will estab­lish a con­nec­tion between migrat­ing com­mu­ni­ties, their col­lect­ed his­to­ries, and data col­lec­tion. With the forced migra­tion of mil­lions of refugees com­pound­ed and exac­er­bat­ed by the glob­al pan­dem­ic, ​“A Few in Many Places” will exam­ine what hap­pens to the col­lec­tions, mem­o­ries, and cul­tur­al pos­ses­sions of a group of peo­ple when they are uproot­ed from their lands, or are no longer able to care for their right­ful col­lec­tions. In light of recent events in the U.S. and the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment, con­ver­sa­tions about colo­nial­ism, the his­to­ry of slav­ery in the U.S. and cur­rent day inequity have been brought to the fore­front of Amer­i­can dis­course and con­sid­er­a­tion. Through pho­tog­ra­phy, research texts, film, and the devel­op­ment of a col­lec­tions con­tract, artists includ­ing Avakian, Eid-Sab­bagh and Khouri as well as par­tic­i­pants in the work­shop, will dis­cuss ideas of repa­tri­a­tion, the right­ful own­er­ship and con­trol over data, and con­sid­er Euro­pean colo­nial and Amer­i­can neo-colo­nial forced dis­pos­ses­sion along­side lega­cies of intra-region­al colo­nial­ism per­tain­ing to Ottoman, Iran­ian and Arab hege­mon­ic powers.