On Recognising the Moment of Hope: Speaking in Echoes with Hiwa K.
In V. Saumya & E. Rahmati (Eds.), NO NIIN, 15.
Art is a small platform that only elites are listening to. Not so many people know what artists are saying. So as artists, we need to build organic spaces where people can come and where you don’t have masters and disciples, only participants. Where we could go back to a certain set of core values, you know, Marx also talked about this, ‘you have to produce where you are’, and ‘take people out from that alienation of production’.
Hiwa K. was in Helsinki in September for the press announcement of his invitation and acceptance of a new commission by IHME: to organise and conduct his famous participatory work Chicago Boys: While we were singing, they were dreaming during April-May 2023, in Helsinki.
Hiwa is interested in research, participatory working, and collective action, but he is also interested in making it, for lack of a better word, fun. Previously written texts and press articles on Hiwa have called him an “extellectual”, someone who gains knowledge from ‘the streets’, through conversations and the exchange of books. Despite the risk of repeating pre-published information, I find it critically important for the sake of reading the following interview to point out that the qualities of humour and satire—to neither take oneself too seriously nor wallow in the miseries of the world—occupy a central position in Hiwa’s work.
Link to online interview in NO NIIN magazine here