05 Oct 10 | Uncategorized
On 18 August 1936, poet and playwright Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) was killed by General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist Civil Guard on a mountainside in Andalucia.
Now a short film set in Barranco de Viznar, near the site where hundreds — if not thousands — of people, including Lorca, were murdered and thought to have been buried in a mass grave at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, is part of an exhibition in London paying tribute to Spain’s most treasured writer.
Muerto de Amor, on until 9 October at the MP Birla Millennium Art Gallery, in West Kensington, brings together the work of 11 artists, working in a range of mediums, including painting, ceramics and installations.
Artist Carlos Espana, who also curated the exhibition, transcribed and engraved 120 Lorca quotations on ceramic earthenware plaques and hung them from trees, using them as the emotional focus of the film, which, Espana says, honours the memory of Lorca and the other innocent victims who died there.
Under the Franco dictatorship, discussion of the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War was restricted. But over the last two decades, there has been a call for the country to come to terms with their harrowing past.
In 2009, historians and archaeologists excavated the site where the murder of Lorca and so many others were thought to have taken place, but, after two months, no human remains were found. The facts of the writer’s death remain shrouded in mystery.
28 Sep 10 | Index Index, minipost
A group of Russian artists have threatened to boycott an exhibition at the Louvre over the removal of works deemed offensive to Vladimir Putin. Seven painters have said they won’t partiicpate because of a ban on Avdei Ter-Oganyan’s “Radical Abstractionism” series, originally created in 2004. A culture ministry official told newspaper Ria Novosti that a boycott could not take place because the artwork had already been shipped to Paris. Ter-Ognayan wrote on his website that the boycott would draw attention to the “conflict between art and the authorities”.
Read more on Avdei Ter-Oganyan here.
08 Sep 10 | Uncategorized
Don’t Stop The Music!
Read about the songs they tried to ban, the musicians stopped from playing live, and the singers who are put on trial, in the bumper SMASHED HITS issue of Index
DANIEL BARENBOIM Bring music, bring life
An exclusive interview by Clemency Burton-Hill
COLIN GREENWOOD Set yourself free
Technology brings Radiohead closer to their fans
WILL SELF Words and music
God Save the Queen
PETER JENNER The Deal
Musicians have to play the game to succeed
MARIE KORPE and OLE REITOV
Banned: a guide to music censorship
MALU HALASA Fight the power
Hip hop is the sound of modern protest
NEGAR SHAGHAGHI Sounds of silence
Young Iranians defy convention to make music
SIMON BROUGHTON Notes from underground
The challenges facing a female singer in Tehran
GILAD ATZMON Primacy of the ear
The education of a jazz musician
MALU HALASA Words and music
Chuy y Mauricio
KHYAM ALLAMI Dispatches from a new generation
The independent music scene in the Middle East
DIVINE COMEDY
CHAZA CHARAFEDDINE Body and soul
Preview of the new exhibition
FEMI KUTI Words and music
Beng Beng Beng
LOUISE GRAY Can Music Kill?
Is there some music that deserves banning?
LAPIRO DE MBANGA Voice to the voiceless
The Cameroonian musician speaks to Index from prison
KAYA GENÇ Coffee-house blues
Kurdish musicians are battling against prejudice
HTEIN LIN Rocking Rangoon
Music and resistance in Burma
WOESER Tradition of protest
A singer unafraid of taboos in Tibet
RACHEL ASPDEN Trance music
A vibrant culture is being challenged by orthodox Islam
JAN FAIRLEY Control shift
Cuban musicians are pushing the boundaries
INDEX INDEX
A round-up of music censorship stories
To listen to exclusive contributors’ playlists go to www.indexoncensorship.org/music
24 May 10 | Uncategorized
It’s been a busy month for China’s central propaganda department (CPD).
In April, the Qinghai earthquake exposed tensions between Tibetans and the Chinese authorities. The disaster, just weeks prior to the Shanghai Expo, seemed likely to steal the limelight away from the celebrated international event. More recently the CPD’s skills have been tested by a spate of school attacks, the department responded with a press freedom clampdown, it banned reporters from interviewing the parents of the dead and injured schoolchildren. Also on the CPD’s growing list of media concerns this month were the state visit of North Korea‘s leader Kim Jong-il and last week’s China-US Human Rights Dialogue.
Faced with a possible outbreak of negative publicity, the CPD have been issuing internal “directives” on a near daily basis, the orders specify what stories news agencies can publish, how to publish them, and how to control and monitor the public discussions. Luckily for us, so widespread are these directives that there is a Chinese blog, the Ministry of Truth, dedicated to leaking these press guidelines for all to see.
Excerpts from some of the directives have been translated into English by China Digital:
17 May – Regarding sentencing of Taixing school attacker; “only use Xinhua sources for pronouncement of first sentence, do not report death sentence, not not promote any other similar news items.”
14 May – Report “China-US Human Rights Dialogue” correctly, do not put related news on the front page, close comment sections.
12 May – [Shaanxi stabbings] …only publish the general draft from Xinhua, do not use information from other sources; do not place it in a prominent position; do not exhibit it for a long time; close the news commentary function.
11 May – News about Internet in Xinjiang must all use draft of media in Xinjiang, do not promote, do not hype.
30 April – [Shanghai Expo] … all media need to use reports from Xinhua or other central committee media; no other media should do its own reporting; no following or stopping leaders for interviews
29 April – [Taixing stabbings] … do not send reporters for interviews… Do not put it on the highlights section or on the front page. Do not give it a large title. Do not attach photos.
For more information about the Ministry of Truth, read this China Digital article.
