Platform1_Documenta11, Oct 9-30, Berlin

[anna balint]

Platform1_Documenta11
Democracy Unrealized
(Demokratie als unvollendeter Prozess)

Between October 9 - 30, Documenta11 and the House of World Culturs, Berlin in association with the DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service, will 
inaugurate an international symposium: Democracy Unrealized in Berlin that will bring to conclusion the series which opened in Vienna March 15. Democracy 
Unrealized is the first in a five-part series of public debates, symposia, film presentations, lectures, and art exhibition organized within the framework of Documenta11 in 
Kassel, Germany.

About the Platforms
The present symposium continues Documenta11’s yearlong series of public debates and informal presentations in six key cities around the world. The intention of 
these platfroms is to bring the important artistic field to which Documenta11 belongs in dialogue with other fields and cities. The 1st part of Democracy Unrealized in 
Vienne (March 15 - April 23, 2001) presented lectures of about 20 international speakers. The second platform Experiments with Truth: Transitional Justice and the 
Processes of Truth and Reconciliation (New Delhi, May 7 - 20) was twofold: for the conference about 30 participants: historians, legal scholars, film makers, visual 
artists, psychoanalysts, curators, anthropologists, art historians and theater makers presented papers. The conference was accompanied by a video and film program 
of 35 films by 26 directors. All the proceedings of the two platforms are fully documented and are available as videos on our website.
The locus of Documenta11 is one of debate and contestation in which a constellation of theoretical ideas cross with praxis. Planned as intellectually rigorous and 
methodologically adventurous, the culmination of the platforms as an exhibition unfolds the complex vicissitudes that shape the Documenta11 exhibition when it opens 
on June 8, 2002.
The platforms can be understood then as constellations that open up a critical review of processes of a range of knowledge production. Equally, these platforms 
perform a second operation in that they allow Documenta11 the opportunity to render transparent the dimension of its intellectual interest and curatorial research. 
Hence the entire conceptual orientation of the exhibition is decidedly interdisciplinary, connecting a wide range of scholars, philosophers, artists, and filmmakers, 
institutions, cities, and audiences.
The locus of Documenta11 is one of debate and contestation, intellectually rigorous; methodologically adventurous more than any exhibition of contemporary art.

Program Berlin
October 9 - 30, 2001
House of World Cultures
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
D-10557 Berlin, Germany
The conference language is English. Simultaneous interpreters will be at
hand. There is a limited number of seats available.
Final program is subject to change.

October 9, 2001
7 p.m.
Welcoming Address
Dr. Hans-Georg Knopp, Secretary General, House of World Cultures
Okwui Enwezor, Artistic Director Documenta11
8 p.m.
Homi K. Bhabha, Professor of English and American Literature
and Language, and African American Studies at Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts

October 16, 2001
8 p.m.
Wole Soyinka, writer, theater director, Professor of Comparative
Literature, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, and Nobel Laureate (1986)
in Literature

October 18, 2001
8 p.m.
Ernesto Laclau, Professor of Political Science, Centre for Theo-retical
Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Essex,
Colchester

October 27, 2001
8 p.m.
Nawal El Saadawi, Writer, Psychiatrist, Feminist Activist, Kairo
9 p.m.
Zhiyuan Cui, Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Chinese
People’s University in Beijing and Visiting Fellow at the East Asia Institute,
University of Singapore (2001-2002)

October 30, 2001
8 p.m.
Harbans Mukhia, Professor of History and Rector, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi