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Year Ten 2009-2010 Season
"Some say that art and activism don't mix... but in times like these, art must act--and act ethically. Through a communion of diverse, kindred spirits, VBB's artist-activists refuse to stop dreaming of a better world." –Ruben Martinez, author of Crossing Over and The New Americans
This year, 2009-10, marks VBB’s ten-year anniversary. We invite you to join with us to celebrate our organization's journey from a grassroots activist arts organization to a recognized alternative-still activist-arts organization. We began the season with VBB’s trademark show, living room art, a "one night stand" in a neighborhood home, to feature original work by known and upcoming artists. This year’s living room art production, Honoring Dissent / Descent celebrated dissent in Pakistan and in Houston's Eastside. Elements of the show will go on to be exhibited in homes in other neighborhoods, cities, and countries.
In Spring 2010, VBB will continue smaller theme-based shows, East End Live Art, in Houston’s East End at Café Flores. Please note that VBB's spring season is developed by a committee headed by VBB Project Coordinator Jacsun Shah who's working with Gunjen Mittal, Samina Mahmood, and Selina Peshori. Our second living room art show of the year will feature VBB's Art Car, and there will be a dynamic reading and perfomance by much acclaimed artist, writer, musican Patti Smith.
VBB will continue to cosponsor events presented by other organizations whose work matches the VBB mission: to cross borders, sustain dialogue, and incite social justice through art.
To get regular updates about our shows please join our email list.
Spring 2010
East End Live Art ::: Artists / Mothers 2
5:00 pm, Sunday, February 21, 2010 Café Flores, 6606 Lawndale Street Houston, TX 77023
$ Free
VBB celebrates an alternative celebration of mothers, featuring dynamic artists, whose readings, visual art, and performances inspire audiences to consider the excitement and conflict attending artists who are also mothers. Artists include: Saida Carter, Michelli Cockburn, Anju Mittal, Jacsun Shah, and Yunuen Perez Vertti. After the performances, the artists will discuss how these two roles intersect, inform one another, inspire, and create conflict and creative work in their lives. They will present work that addresses the challenge of raising children while producing art. Artists / Mothers 2 is curated by Samina Mahmood, Gunjen Mittal, Selina Pishori and Jacsun Shah. VBB's Founding Director Sehba Sarwar will host the evening, and there will be an open mic and discussion. Bring your voices! Mix and mingle after the show to visit with artists, community, and eat sandwiches made with Berta Flores' famous home-made bread.
5:00 pm, Sunday, March 28, 2010 Café Flores, 6606 Lawndale Street Houston, TX 77023
$ Free
Violence and disease have always put the world’s women at risk, whether it’s domestic violence or the violence of war, sexually transmitted diseases or diseases spawned by warring conditions. And women, individually and collectively, often have to take responsibility for their own safety and health. Sad, but true, it is the disempowerment of women that frequently leads to their empowerment. Faced with seemingly impossible odds, women can and do draw upon each other for the will and ingenuity to tackle problems; by necessity, no challenge is beyond them. La Voz Femenina7, a program depicting, and underscoring, the strength of indomitable women should inspire women, and supportive men, everywhere—VBB and Arte Público applaud the artists, and you will too! This year’s collaboration with Arte Público Press to celebrate International Women’s Month includes films, art exhibits, open mic, and discussion, featuring Erica Fletcher, Liana Lopez, Delilah Montoya, and Bryan Parras.
5:00 pm, Sunday, April 18, 2010 Café Flores, 6606 Lawndale Street Houston, TX 77023
$ Free
This show first kicked off in April 2009 to give voice to teachers to perform work produced through the Writing for Self Discovery Workshops that VBB offers for teachers who work with at-risk youth in Houston. The show features teachers who participate in our workshops to explore their own creative voices. Teachers Speak Out 2 is curated by Samina Mahmood, Gunjen Mittal, Selina Pishori, Jacsun Shah, and the workshop faciliators, Cathy Boswell amd Marcela Descalzi. VBB's Founding Director Sehba Sarwar will host the evening, and there will be an open mic and discussion. Bring your voices! Cosponsored by Houston Institute for Culture, KPFT Pacifica Radio 90.1 FM, and Café Flores.
7 pm, Monday, April 19, 2010 E. Cullen Performance Hall, University of Houston, 77004
$5 general admission at door; no one will be turned away
(Box office opens at 6pm)
$35 with pre-signed copy of Just Kids + preferred seating (purchase through Brazos Bookstore)
Voices Breaking Boundaries is honored to present Patti Smith, a writer, performer and visual artist who gained recognition in the 1970’s for her revolutionary mergence of poetry and rock. She will be reading from her new much acclaimed memoir, JUST KIDS (Harper Collins, NY: 2010), as well as performing a few songs. The memoir, an honest and moving coming-of-age story of her extraordinary relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, is a chronicle of friendship in its truest sense, a portrait of two innocents who, in a chance meeting in 1967, become lovers and then friends, and went on to fulfill their mutual dream of becoming great artists. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous, the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe.
Patti Smith has released numerous albums including Horses, bearing Mapplethorpe’s renowned photograph, that has been hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time. Her art work has been exhibited world-wide, and her books include Witt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Patti Smith Complete 1975 - 2006. On July 10, 2005, she received the Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the highest grade awarded by the French Republic to eminent artists and writers who have contributed significantly to furthering the arts throughout the world. Smith resides in New York City and is the mother of two, Jackson and Jesse. In spring 2003, VBB's founding director Sehba Sarwar met Patti Smith at New York's LaGuardia airport following a rally protesting the US invasion of Iraq. Once they landed in Houston, Sarwar (along with VBB Board Member Michael Woodson), interviewed Smith on KPFT Pacifica Radio 90.1 FM, and the two have remained in touch since then.
Tune in for a live interview on KPFT Pacifica 90.1 FM with Patti Smith at noon on Monday, April 19, 2010.
VBB’s Founding Director Sehba Sarwar has long been seen whizzing around Houston in a spunky red '93 Honda Civic hatchback. The car, often viewed as a VBB member, was retired in Fall 2009 fall after a long history of transporting hundreds of high-schoolers, many out-of-town artists and activists, and the VBB board, staff and volunteers. To honor the car, VBB will be entering the car in the Orange Show’s art car parade on May 8, and VBB’s in-house artist Eric Hester will be welding out the hatchback to create space for a microphone. Other changes on the car will include TV screens, materials used to decorate Pakistan’s trucks, and VBB’s logo, the world map viewed from another perspective. To see VBB's art car, Digital Meets Pakistani Truck Art, as well as other art cars from around the country, join us for a preview of the art car parade on May 1 at the home of Emily and Zach Haines. The show will feature work by artists including David Cisneros, Paul Hester, Abro Khuda Bux, Mark Lacy, Sehba Sarwar, Yunuen Perez Vertti, Maheen Zia and del monte films, and others from Houston’s art car culture (TBA). Also on exhibit will be hand-decorated handicrafts from Pakistan collected by Anj Rana. Just like all VBB art car productions, the show will include video, art installations, food, drinks and open mic. Please join us for another exciting installment of living room art, the power of community and spend an evening with us celebrating the power of movement and global connections.
7:00 pm, Sunday, May 23, 2010 Café Flores, 6606 Lawndale Street Houston, TX 77023
$ Free
Un/Natural Disasters focuses on the effects of government mismanagements when un/natural disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike have struck the Gulf Coast. The show also explores the effects of earthquakes that have devastated Haiti and northern Pakistan and India. All proceeds from this year's show will go toward Haiti relief efforts. Un / Natural Disasters is curated by Samina Mahmood, Gunjen Mittal, Selina Pishori and Jacsun Shah. VBB's Founding Director Sehba Sarwar will host the evening, and there will be an open mic and discussion. Bring your voices! The show is hosted by VBB Founding Director Sehba Sarwar, and there will be an open mic and discussion. Cosponsored by KPFT Pacifica Radio 90.1 FM, Houston Institute for Culture, and Café Flores.
VBB is an organization that has long honored activists who have taken risks and spoken out. This fall, we will kick off our season with Honoring Dissent / Descent, a Pakistan Live Broadcast production that sheds light on the 1950's student movement in Pakistan led by Dr. Mohammad Sarwar, Sehba Sarwar's father, who passed away in May 2009. The show will also honor long-time activist Daniel Bustamante, the founder of Houston's Festival Chicano, who was also involved with the United Farm Workers, and La Raza Unida. Honoring Dissent / Descent features installations and photography by Tehmina Ahmed, Chuy Benitez, Rosalinda Bustamante, Ben DeSoto, Bryan Parras, Sharjil Baloch/ Beena Sarwar and Sehba Sarwar. There will be altar-pieces by artists including Liz Alexander, Michelle Barnes, Sarah Gish, Shaista Parveen, and Greg Lira, honoring family members, activists, and those who continue to take risks. Open mic will be emceed by Yunuen Perez at 9:30 pm - bring your words and or altar art! Speakers include: Sissy Farenthold, Robert Gallegos, Bapsi Sidhwa, Alice Valdez and others. Special thanks to: Kamran Ali, Claudia Baba, Salmaan Hasan, Nusrat Malik, Muzaffar Qazilbash, Mehnaz Shafi, and Bapsi Sidhwa for kicking off the project in Fall 2008.
A Decade of Dissent: VBB’s 10-Year Anniversary event celebrates artists who have participated in our productions throughout the decade. Highlights will include photographs by Paul Hester, who has documented VBB’s early shows, including its 5-Year Anniversary, annual Words for Peace celebrations, and youth workshops. On exhibit, too, will be images by Eric Hester, former student of VBB’s founding director and currently a documentary artist for VBB. Paul and Eric—father and son—both exhibited with VBB during our residency at Project Row Houses. Photographs by Burnell McCray, whose work covered the early VBB shows in southwest Houston, will be on display as well. This past year, Burnell joined us again to photograph our East End shows at the local Café Flores. A VBB documentary by filmmaker Laura Harrison, who interviewed more than thirty artists regarding their views on art, activism and dissent, will be another feature of the evening, and a brand new short film by Faroukh Virani will be screened, one that captures VBB’s first decade and current projects. The show includes performances by VBB founding members and one by director / educator Keisha Breaker’s Lee High School girls’ dance troupe. VBB will honor arts organizations that have supported us in our first decade, and we will proudly receive a Proclamation from the City of Houston honoring VBB’s work during the past decade. As usual, refreshments will be served, including a celebration cake.
Rothko Chapel
1409 Sul Ross St., Houston, TX 77006
7:00pm Friday, November 13, 2009 $ Free
Writer, journalist and film-maker Tariq Ali was born in Lahore in 1943. He was educated at Oxford University, where he became involved in student politics, in particular with the movement against the war in Vietnam. On graduating he led the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. He owned his own independent television production company, Bandung, which produced programmes for Channel 4 in the UK during the 1980s. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio and contributes articles and journalism to magazines and newspapers including The Guardian and the London Review of Books. He is editorial director of London publishers Verso and is on the board of the New LeftReview, for whom he is also an editor. He has produced prolific non-fiction and fiction. Public reception following Tariq Ali’s talk sponsored by VBB.
Honoring the Legacy is an event honoring Pakistan's first nationwide student movement (1950-54) led by the late Dr M. Sarwar who was then a medical student. The movement was remarkable for its focus on education-related issues and student unity, its independent political position (non-alignment to any political party even though many activists had strong affiliations mostly to left-wing parties), strong organization and commitment. Re-visiting this little known part of Pakistan’s history is particularly relevant now, since the current elected government has announced the revival of student unions, banned since 1984 by the then military dictator. The aim of the event is to look back in order to plan moving forward. Highlights include poetry by the feminist writer Fehmida Riaz and renditions by well-known singer Tina Sani both of whom were close associates of Dr M. Sarwar. Youth activists Alia Amirali, Ammar Sindhu, Ali Cheema and Varda Nisar, all associated with various universities, will share their thoughts. Beena Sarwar and Sharjil Baloch will show their new documentary film, based on extensive research and interviews, featuring animations based on old photographs, on the student movement. Veteran journalist and activist I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and a strong proponent of students’ rights, will make concluding remarks. The popular band Laal (Red) (will perform songs based on progressive poetry including the famous poets Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib. There will be a tea break. Co-sponsored by ‘Friends of Dr Sarwar’ and VBB.
Gamperaliya
Directed by Lester James Peries
(Sri Lanka, 1964, 120 min., in Sinhala dialogue with English subtitles) Saturday, February 20, 7:00 p.m Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 1001 Bissonnet St, Houston 77005
A seminal work in Sri Lankan cinema, Gamperaliya launched “a revolution, not only in the way films were made, but also in the content,” according to producer Anton Wickramasinghe. Based on the novel by Martin Wickramasinghe, the film focuses on Piyal, a teacher and member of the new rising middle class, who falls in love with the daughter of his village’s leading aristocratic clan. Defensive positions are assumed and the girl’s parents insist upon a marriage to a stuffed shirt of her own class. For its elegant style, Gamperaliya has been compared to Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy, a classic of Indian film history. Copsponsored by VBB.
UCLA FoP Tour - PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
GAMPERALIYA – UCLA Film and Television archive
VBB celebrates its 10-Year Anniversary in 2009-10!
VBB is a multidisciplinary arts organization. Our mission is to
cross borders, sustain dialogue, and incite social justice through art.
