Solidarity Must Be Defended

A few words from Naeem: 

“At Bellagio, I collected notes for the introduction to the book.” 

Quote from Solidarity Must Be Defended: 

“The stories we found often proposed less sunny horizons — dark turns and missed connections came to the forefront. Nevertheless, through it all, many witnesses and participants of those events maintained optimism despite setbacks. Marking the end of a two-year research process, we present this anthology as a mid-journey pause and reflection: transnational solidarity is always worth celebrating and also, always, difficult to inhabit.”

Synopsis:

The anthology “Solidarity Must Be Defended” brings together projects on gestures and alignments within the visual arts around transnational solidarity during the Cold War. In dialogue with, among others, the quietist tendencies of non-alignment and the radical vector of liberation movements, the book looks at both grand initiatives and tragic misfires from an entangled, decolonizing world. The point of departure for this anthology is a special issue of Mezosfera magazine (“Refractions of Socialist Solidarity”) edited in Budapest by Szakács in dialogue with Mohaiemen’s three-channel film Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017). This anthology proposes that transnational solidarity is always worth celebrating, but also extremely difficult to inhabit.