How can you advocate for the rights and the culture of minoritized groups when you're working in an institution? What can a vanishing Brazilian precolonial language tell us about today's relations between cultures? Next Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 December, two extraordinary speakers will talk to our #BECC2020 trainees about activism, memory, exile and identity.
The ENCC's flagship training and staff exchange programme, Bridge Between European Cultural Centres (BECC), invites you to attend these special lectures related to this year's training topic: Working with Hyperdiverse Audiences. The lectures will be presented by speakers Zita Holbourne from the UK and Ricky Seabra from Brazil/USA. Our guests are both high-level professionals who will share their stories and experiences related to programming for hyperdiversity.
Register here for the online event.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic circumstances, this year the BECC kick-off seminar will be held online. The perk of that format is that a number of outside participants will be able to join us for these talks.
The lectures will take place on the 8th and the 9th of December, starting at 11am CET and lasting for about 1h30. The deadline for registration is on Monday 7th of December, 12pm CET. You may choose to attend one or both of the lectures.
BECC Inspiring talks with...
Zita Holbourne (UK)
"How to advocate for minorities through cultural institutions"
8th December 2020, 11.00 am CET
Ricky Seabra (Brazil and USA)
"My Kariri Experience and a Warning"
9th December 2020, 11.00 am CET
About the speakers
Zita Holbourne is a trade unionist, community & human rights campaigner and activist, an author, visual artist, curator, poet, vocalist and writer. She is the Co-Founder and National Chair of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK, established in 2010 and campaigning against the disproportionate impact of cuts and austerity on black and minority ethnic workers, service users and communities and on the wider racism and injustice they & other deprived communities face. She is also the National Vice President of the PCS Union and Joint National Chair of Artist's Union England.
She works with unions across Europe and Internationally to campaign for migrant and refugee rights and against racism and other forms of discrimination. She also campaigns around the links between climate change, migration & refugees & spoke at COP21 in Paris.
She is part of the UNESCO Coalition of Artists for the General history of Africa and in this role promotes African history through the arts to counter racism and injustice.
Her artistic work has been featured at the Tate Modern, V&A, Stratford Picture House, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Goldsmiths Women's Library amongst many other venues both nationally and internationally.
Zita won the positive role model for race award at the National Diversity Awards 2012. In December 2019 she received a lifetime achievement award for Equality Champion by the Legacy Gala and Awards. She has been nominated by the BLAC Awards for a special recognition award for community activism.
In August 2020 Zita gave the International Slavery Museum's annual Dorothy Kuya Slavery Remembrance Lecture, to mark UNESCO Slavery Remembrance Day, which has previously been given by Ndaba Mandela, son of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King III, son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Since 2019, she has been a special adviser to the ENCC on our diversity project.
Read more about Zita here.
Ricky Seabra is a multimedia storyteller, designer and researcher born in Washington in 1964 with a BFA in Communication Design from Parsons School of Design (NYC) and a Masters in Design Research from the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL). In his performances he combines design and activism to speak of politics, memory and poetics. He has created several shows with directors Andrea Jabor (BRAZIL) and Dirk Verstockt (BE) and has lived in Washington, New York, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, Crato, and Brasilia where he currently lives.
Between 2012 and 2017, Seabra lived in Crato in the Northeast of Brazil where he directed the Historical Museum of Crato. The Museum was in ruins and closed for 8 years when he started to work there. He slowly opened 5 of its 9 rooms and transformed it into a cultural centre that opened at night offering movies, art exhibitions, design, and language workshops. He was also Coordinator of Historical Heritage of Crato and used the museum as a headquarters to fight for the preservation of the old houses of the city including houses in the art deco style of the 20th century. He believes in the reconstruction of the built heritage as it was done in post-war Europe.
It was in this context that he learned of the existence of the extinct Kariri language (the language spoken in the region before the Portuguese arrived). Fascinated by endangered languages and believing that the saddest thing that can happen to a culture is the loss of its language, in 2014 he embarked on a quest to understand how many words remained in the Kariri language basing his research on a 300 year old Grammar and Catechism written in Kariri by a Jesuit priest. Seabra now dreams of reviving the language. In 2020 he released an online dictionary of the Kariri language. Two tribes related to the Kariris that lost their languages (and only speak Portuguese) are now using the dictionary to help in the effort to revive that language.
These Inspiring talks are organised with the support of the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo.
