Welcome

TO A COMMUNITY IN THE MAKING

As an interdisciplinary and cross cultural curatorial undertaking Blind Dates tackles with the traces or ‘what remains’ of the peoples, places and cultures that once constituted the diverse geography of the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922). Taking the breakup of the latter’s complex history as a point of departure, and considering the subsequent formation of nation states throughout the region, the project is an attempt to explore the effects of various forms of ruptures, gaps, erasures as well as (re)constructions through the prism of contemporary lived-experiences. Blind Dates instigates dialogue to foster research-based artistic projects. By pairing artists and non artists for a series of private/public discussions project co-curators have been ‘matchmaking’ to mediate encounters between distanced neighbors and their estranged cultures. The exhibition, which opens at Pratt Manhattan in November 2010, will be the outcome of collaborations stemming from these critical encounters with the other, or engagement with ‘otherness’.