Saturday 28 June 2008

The second in the series of four Prologues leading up to the opening of the Tate Triennial exhibition in February 2009, explores the theme of exile and contemporary art.

In 2002, according to UNO's International Migration Report, 175 million people were living in a country they were not born in. Prologue 2: Exiles addresses issues of identity, particularly pressing for immigrant communities in the most "globalized" countries : satellite dishes popping up, the difficulty of adapting traditions to the host country, grafts that do not take… Rather than set one fixed root against another, a mythologized "origin" against an integrating and homogenizing "soil," wouldn't it be wiser to assign other conceptual categories to the process of immigration?

With about ten million more immigrants every year worldwide, increasing professional nomadism, an unprecedented circulation of goods and services, the formation of transnational political entities, isn't it about time to invent new ways of understanding, what cultural identity is? Exile might be the starting point. Today's artists are exploring those issues and treating geographical displacement as a new material.

The events and debate of Prologue 2: Exiles include screenings, performance, talks and interventions by sound art collective Ultra-red, artists Flávia Müller Medeiros, Nasrin Tabatabai and Tania Bruguera and writer and critic TJ Demos.

Look out for details on Prologue 3: Travel and Prologue 4: Borders happening in October and January.

• Tate Triennial 2009 Prologue 2 : Exiles: Flávia Müller Medeiros and Nasrin Tabatabai   Saturday 28 June 2008   free
• Tate Triennial 2009 Prologue 2 : Exiles: TJ Demos: Exiles   Saturday 28 June 2008
• Tate Triennial 2009 Prologue 2 : Exiles: An Intervention By Tania Bruguera   Saturday 28 June 2008   free
• Tate Triennial 2009 Prologue 2 : Exiles: We Come From Your Future : Ultra-Red   performance 12.00–15.00, room open for viewing 10.00-12.00 and 15.00-16.30   free