Culture of Convergence (Dissertation proposal)

 

Dissertation proposal – Censorship

by Malik Muhammad Azam Khan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Submission date: 16 May 2022

FDA: Culture of Convergence

Word Count: 2265

Introduction

It is a suppression of speech public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive or inconvenient. Censorship can be conducted by Government, private institutions and other controlling bodies of government and private organization may engage in censorship.

When an individual such as author or other creator engages in censorship of his or her own work or speech, it is referred to as self-censorship. General censorship occurs in a verity of different media, including speech, books, music, films and other arts, the press, radio television and the internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security to control obscenity, pornography and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable group, to promote or restrict political or religious views and to prevent stander and label. Direct censorship or maybe legal depending on the type, location and context. Many countries provide strong projection against censorship by law, but none of these protection are absolute and frequently a claim of necessity to balance conflicting right is made in order to determine what could and could not censored. There is no law against self censorship. [Green, J. and Karolides, N., 2009] 

So in this if you talk about artists, Artistic expression is one of the easiest forms of controlled expression and is subject to many restrictions, whether in the form of governments, laws, regulations and state institutions responsible for enforcing these regulations, especially when art deals with one of the three historically controversial topics of politics, religion and gender. Historically, art has played a key role in challenging values ​​and practices that juxtapose individual liberty with human rights in all its forms, taking the form of legislation and legalizing oppression in all its forms.

Sometimes this coercion is clearly politically motivated and is used to defend existing authorities against criticism aimed at changing them or denouncing abuses of power. At other times coercion appears as a rejection of sexual relationships that deviate from the socially accepted norms of men and women associated with the institution of the family. In many countries  according to censorship rules and regulations, any artwork depicting other types of relationships such as homosexuality poses a threat to the social and religious values ​​of the people and is therefore allowed to be displayed publicly. Religion is another red line that must not be crossed by artistic works that are subject to censorship rules and regulations. But in my research I am taking about one of the three topics which is Political and power. [Green, J. and Karolides, N., 2009] 

Now a days censorship is everywhere you may disagree with me but I can give you some examples, whether it's a beep on a TV show or a large pixel painting, we often see creative content being censored every day. The most frequently cited reasons are “preventing pornography” and “protecting the interests” of society. An artist's freedom of expression is severely restricted by such censorship, where the full meaning of the artwork can be lost. Such obstacles can force them to abandon a particular project altogether. Many valuable and original artistic contributions are lost in the process.

 

Recent acts of art censorship in museums against exhibitions by famous artists have been interpreted by many as evidence of dangerous political correctness and total disregard for the value of fragments. Works by 19th and 20th century artists have recently been found offensive by museums or the public and have therefore been removed from the exhibition. Among other things, the Manchester Art Gallery removed John William Waterhouse's painting Hylas and the Nymphs (1896). But this is something else this is just a prime example of censorship and our concern is something else. [the Guardian. Sonia Boyce 2018]

John William Waterhouse's painting (1896)

Significance:

 

What I wanna talk about and want to do research about is if you see a report by Freemuse, the largest independent international organization for the defense of freedom of artistic expression, the governments of Turkey, China and Pakistan are abusing anti-terrorism laws against artists, censoring them, harassing them, threatening them and risking imprisonment for their proximity to terrorist groups or because they owned works of art. Interpreted as a threat to the nation. The case of Kurdish artist and journalist Zahra Dugan drew media attention in 2017, when she was sentenced to two years and 10 months by human rights groups and the arts community. Along with her work as a journalist, she was sent to prison, for showing in the Kurdish that was destroyed by Turkish military operation in 2015. [Freemuse. Report 2016, 2019]

 

In 2017 Zehra Dogan was jailed for three years after being arrested a year ago on terrorism charges, along with a painting of a Kurdish village destroyed by Turkish troops on social media. In prison, at the age of 25, she finally learned to write in Kurdish, and as a Kurdish woman she writes about the bitter reality of physical confinement and political silence. Dakman who is also the owner of Carre D’ Artistes Istanbul art gallery says, She didn’t have the Material for art in prison, she demanded it but they called her work propaganda and didn’t provided her anything, As a result Dogan used what she could and she used menstrual blood, hair and clothes for her art work. And after she releases from three different Turkish jails she said “I proved myself as an artist to the whole world except for my country”.

After this economically supper power country China is there, In China Ai Weiwei is an artist known today not only for his art and business, but also for his crusade against the Chinese government. During the first three decades of the China, artists were under strict ideological control and their task was to "serve politics" and "serve the people". There was little room for the creative spirit to go beyond the guiding principles of the Communist Party. But Ai Weiwei decided to challenge the current political system with his famous art Sunflower and else he featured an image of Tiananmen with his middle finger and used a four-letter obscenity against the authorities. Additionally, it has some anti-government artifacts, highlighting the corruption of the Chinese government and their other flaws.

Ai Weiwei famous work (Sunflower)

Ai Weiwei uses his creative work as a vehicle to censor, soften the art market, and criticize the ruling government in China. He was arrested in 2011 after police ransacked his office. Shortly after his 81 days in detention, followed by four years of de facto detention, his art studio in Shanghai was demolished. However, the demolition appears to be a side effect of Beijing's latest urban development projects, although it is still seen as revenge for the artist's criticism. And Chinese government also removed his name from the list of artists and censored his famous work named Sunflower. [Jiang, W., 2011] 

Tiananmen, 1995-2010

And then we have Asian Muslim country Pakistan, In Pakistan censoring of installation by  Adeela Suleman, "The Killing Fields of Karachi", which led to the extrajudicial execution of a police officer via a similar murder statement issued by the victim's father. The work was prepared for Karachi Biennale 2019, but within hours of opening it was withdrawn by men claiming to be from the state intelligence bureau and they just simply said she was disturbing the public area. 

Karachi Biennale closed the display by artist Adeela Suleman, who showed the Karachi Killing Fields installation. The work shows 444 small concrete graves that symbolize the victims of the Pakistani authorities. A video of the victim's father was shown at the memorial. This section references a hot topic in Pakistan, the killings during violent police raids in Karachi between 2011 and 2018. Just after two hours of exhibition started the officer in plainclothes attended the biennale and ask officials to closed this exhibition, after her exhibition was closed officer ruins all her art work and smashes all the tombstones and pillars. And before leaving they even threatened to put Adeela in jail. After this Adeela Suleman’s statement came that Biennale ditched me and they abandoned my art work. [Solomon, T., 2019] 

Adeela Suleman’s installation.

You can’t deny this that resistance to censorship has serious consequences. A prime example of this is the fate of Socrates, whose refusal to censor his teachings eventually led to his execution. Even today, resistance is severely punished in many cases.

 

Purpose:

 

And after I did some research and studied about these three countries Turkey, China and Pakistan and the artists from these three countries I mentioned above are linked to each other like the censorship they have been subjected to or imposed to them is the same. It is some how cleared that political interference have been done in their art work. And it is also cleared that the censorship that has been imposed on them has been imposed by certain powerful group. Because these artists have highlighted the wrongdoings of the state, and exposed all the things that a state was doing wrong. You can’t deny this these artists who have exposed the wrongdoings of the states the certain powerful groups of the states have adopted a similar strategy against them, and you can’t deny that it doesn’t involve law enforcement agencies. As it is in front of everyone that Zahra Dogan rise her voice against Turkish army by her art work and they harassed Zahra and kept her in prison for many years and they also try to make her artwork controversial and tries to destroy it. And Chinese officials did same with Ai Weiwei they also threatened him, harassed him, imprisoned him and not just this they even put banned on him and demolished his studio as well. Same thing is happened with Adeela Suleman when she was displaying her artwork against violence of police and law enforcement agencies in Karachi, the officers from agencies showed up and destroy Adeela’s work in front of her. 

The problem is if you don't allow "aggressive" graphics. It makes people more curious as to what the purpose of censorship actually is. Banned works of art often find cult status, like people always wanted to see the censored work of art, authorities and states can stop artists from displaying their work but they can’t stop them from voicing their opinion. That’s what happened with these artists the powerful groups tries to stop them from voicing against them with their artworks, and they somehow destroyed the work of these artists. In this nexus I wanted to find out in my research by contacting and interviewing these artists that how would they feel after what happened to them like the way they treated by the powerful groups of the states, did it have any effect on their creativity after that. And I would ask them if they have succeeded in the goal according to them.

Research question:

what are the effect of censorship?  In this nexus I would highlight how the censorship affect the creative activities of a person how it curb mode of literary person and at last I would try to elaborate how it curtail the progress of the creativeness. 

Literature review: 

Research is about three different artists from three different countries facing kind of same censorship so by keeping in mind the question of research literature review is divided into three different parts.  It is one of the sublime topic regarding the present trend of literary work in the present era. Of late the most discussing topic either it is literary or non literary work, censoring is very burning issue. It has become the mouth piece of every intellectual who wish to pen on any topic. In spite of apex of civilization at present juncture yet humanity feel scare to wind of one`s ideas on some topic. It is said the whole world has changed into global village and out look of its dwellers has been concentrated uniformly but yet some even now not bear others views which it otherwise contrary to his point of view, Issue of censoring is very common now a days. Either it is digital or non digital expression of view one come across this problem in one way or the other way. It has become very vital and essential to address this issue at root cause and sort it out hormonally manner. [Frary, M. and Bright, M., 2021] 

And in the same way if we talk about the work of Adeela, One witness said: "It seemed to me that someone had built a white Christian graveyard (gora kabristan) with a neat row of tombstones", Munna was selling cold drinks. This year he was referring to Adeela Suleiman's work - The Killing Fields of Karachi, which now lies in rubble. "Last night people came and started destroying these rocks,” which Munna witnessed And among those who destroyed the Suleiman facility was Muhammad Rashid, leader of a team of municipal guards from the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC). [Ebrahim, Z., 2019] 

And these artists are not only related by censorship, but they also supported each other. In her letter, Zehra Dugan thanked artist Ai Weiwei for his support. Though difficult, she began a correspondence with two famous artists and Zehra during her imprisonment, and some of these letters were published by PEN International on Banksy's Instagram account and in the media. [Lucie, R., 2019] 

And all the pictures are from the original work of the artists and are very close to them and reflect their work very well. I have gone through the works of literary works of literary figures detailed mentioned in above. Their art work how extend is disturbed by authoritative regime has been remained my core issue to ascertain it. It is still to know how much their creativeness is get the effect of all this. It is still task remain before me to find all this by personally connecting with them and interviewing them. 

Word count: 2265

List of illustration

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/author/peter-trippi/, 2018. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/author/peter-trippi/. [image] Available at: <https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apollo-magazine.com%2Fthe-very-victorian-nymphs-of-j-w-waterhouse%2F&psig=AOvVaw1nzkZ4WN0J_B5UOzWXLn64&ust=1652708498591000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCIiq-YrR4fcCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAH> [Accessed 13 May 2022]. 

https://news.artnet.com/about/caroline-goldstein-596, 2019. https://news.artnet.com/about/caroline-goldstein-596. [image] Available at: <https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.artnet.com%2Fart-world%2Fai-weiwei-slams-us-canada-china-1452409&psig=AOvVaw365ZvndQ6ivoi1EI-6yn1W&ust=1652709386169000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCOCmnbTU4fcCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAO> [Accessed 13 May 2022]. 

Ai Weiwei – Study of Perspective, Tiananmen, 1995-2010, 1995. Ai Weiwei – Study of Perspective, Tiananmen, 1995-2010. [image] Available at: <https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublicdelivery.org%2Fai-weiwei-study-of-perspective%2F&psig=AOvVaw2L-hTlWUtlHj752Elw0f3a&ust=1652710955826000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCKDc87Da4fcCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAK> [Accessed 13 May 2022]. 

https://hyperallergic.com/author/iman-sultan/, 2019. Adeela Suleman’s outdoor installation, The Killing Fields of Karachi (all images courtesy of Adeela Suleman). [image] Available at: <https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fhyperallergic.com%2F526998%2Fadeela-suleman%2F&psig=AOvVaw1c7Kc63pY2CMpXJYPnxcdn&ust=1652711310981000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCNCd-czb4fcCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ> [Accessed 13 May 2022].

Bibliography

Biagioli, M., 2010. From Book Censorship to Academic Peer Review. [online] Taylor & Francis. Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1045722022000003435?journalCode=cemj20> [Accessed 10 May 2022].

Green, J. and Karolides, N., 2009. Encyclopedia of censorship. New York: Facts on File.

the Guardian. 2018. Our removal of Waterhouse’s naked nymphs painting was art in action | Sonia Boyce. [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/06/takedown-waterhouse-naked-nymphs-art-action-manchester-art-gallery-sonia-boyce> [Accessed 12 May 2022].

En.unesco.org. 2016. [online] Available at: <https://en.unesco.org/creativity/sites/creativity/files/freemuse-annual-statistics-art-under-threat-2016.pdf> [Accessed 13 May 2022].

Ethnomusicology.org. 2019. Freemuse Releases State of Artistic Freedom 2019 Report - Society for Ethnomusicology. [online] Available at: <https://www.ethnomusicology.org/news/news.asp?id=445403> [Accessed 13 May 2022].

Jiang, W., 2011. How Ai Weiwei Challenges the Political Order - NYTimes.com. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/11/ai-weiwei-and-the-artists-role-in-china/how-ai-weiwei-challenges-the-political-order> [Accessed 13 May 2022].

Solomon, T., 2019. Karachi Biennale Criticized for Alleged Censorship of Adeela Suleman – ARTnews.com. [online] Artnews.com. Available at: <https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/karachi-biennale-artists-condemn-adeela-suleman-censorship-13481/> [Accessed 12 May 2022].

Frary, M. and Bright, M., 2021. Burning through censorship. [online] https://doi.org/10.1177%2F03064220211012294. Available at: <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03064220211012294> [Accessed 13 May 2022].

Ebrahim, Z., 2019. Adeela Suleman's Karachi Biennale exhibit destroyed: Questions abound over shocking vandalism-Living News , Firstpost. [online] Firstpost. Available at: <https://www.firstpost.com/living/adeela-sulemans-karachi-biennale-exhibit-destroyed-questions-abound-over-shocking-vandalism-7589321.html> [Accessed 13 May 2022].

Lucie, R., 2019. Zehra Doğan to Ai Weiwei, "Art is the best instrument for the struggle" - KEDISTAN. [online] Kedistan.net. Available at: <https://www.kedistan.net/2019/03/15/zehra-dogan-ai-weiwei-art-best-struggle/> [Accessed 13 May 2022].