Pasajes/Passages Forum

October 16th-19th, 2024

About:

Pasajes/Passages is an international forum on borders, exile and artistic creation with a global perspective that will take place across our border. Public humanities dialogues and artistic interventions will promote meaningful exchanges between multicultural communities and scholars, activists and artists from UC San Diego and around the world. Within UCSD, this program will enhance collaborations between the School of Arts and Humanities and the School of Social Sciences and contribute to UCSD’s efforts to become a Hispanic serving institution. In the wider region, it will strengthen collaborations between UC scholars, students, artists and other cultural agents across San Diego and Tijuana. Particularly, we will create partnerships and student exchanges with Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico), International Cities of Refuge Network (Norway), and Universidad Autónoma de Baja California.

Program:

October 16 

Faculty of Humanities, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Tijuana

Dialogue on contemporary writing across borders & Taller California Presentation 

*Presented in Spanish

Sala de usos múltiples de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales

11 am - 12:30 pm: Escritura y desplazamientos forzados en America Latin y la frontera México-Estados Unidos

Philippe Ollé Laprune (Visiting scholar, Latin American Studies, UCSD) and Julián Beltran (UABC)

This dialogue will focus on contemporary writing across borders. Ollé- Laprune will talk about writers in exile across Europe and Latin America. Beltrán will discuss contemporary Mexican narrative concerning violence in the US-Mexico border.

3 pm - 5 pm: Taller California

Lorena Mostajo (UCSD)  will present the independent artist-book press for artists in the Tijuana-San Diego area Taller California with examples from its catalogue.

October 17 
UCSD & Mujeres Brewhouse in Logan Heights
Lunch talk on Writing in Exile,
Roundtable on Subjectivities, Globalization, and Artistic Creation & DJ Set at Mujeres Brewhouse

*Writing in Exile Lunch talk in Spanish

*Subjectivities, Globalization, and Artistic Creation Roundtable and DJ Set in English

12 pm - 2 pm:  Escribir en el exilio

Dolores Huerta/Philip Vera Cruz, Student Center UCSD

With  Philippe Ollé-Laprune (visiting scholar UCSD) and Rodolfo Suarez (UAM, Mexico)

Come and learn about the history of two outstanding projects of solidarity action created in Mexico that protect world artists in exile. Pasajes/Passages is working towards a program of student mobility connected to these initatives. The conversation will be in Spanish.

5 pm - 6:30 pm: Subjectivities, globalization and artistic creation : Perspectives from Africa and Latin America

Mujeres Brew House, 1983 Julian Ave, San Diego

With Etienne Minoungou (Les Récréâtrales, Belgium-Burkina Fasso), Paulina León (FLACSO, Ecuador), Nadia Villafuerte (UCSD, Mexico-US), moderated by Amy Sara Carrol (UCSD)

Borders are places of hybridization where different forms of being and sensibilities meet to assert individuals and communities. These spaces, whether political, geographical, cultural, or even metaphorical, are breeding grounds for innovation and complex identity expressions inspired by in-betweenness, alterities, and undefined temporalities. The disruptions caused by forced displacement can lead to innovative creations or acts that constitute a form of reaction to these overwhelming realities. The three guests at this roundtable from Africa and Latin America are directly involved in such processes. Etienne Minoungou, with Les Récréâtrales, has set up a system that promotes theatrical creation in the African continent and beyond, taking into account the work of the diaspora. Nadia Villafuerte uses images and subjective temporalities to explore the realities of the Mexico-Guatemala border. Paulina Leon chooses a singular angle from which to reflect on how language and the body are affected by the experience of the border.

6:30 pm:  Shout! Music From the Rooftops

Halldór Heiðar Kristínarson (Iceland)

Halldor will DJ music selected from the archive of his activist media project that focuses on creating awareness of protest musicians and socially conscious artists from around the globe 

RSVP

October 18 

UCSD & The Front Gallery, San Ysidro
Lunch with Pasajes/Passages Guests & Grietas del Idioma Poetry Reading with Music

*Presented in Spanish and English

12 pm - 2 pm Lunch and informal conversation with Pasajes/Passages guests

Etienne Minoungou (Les Récréâtrales, Belgium-Burkina Fasso), Paulina León (FLACSO, Ecuador), Philippe Ollé-Laprune (visiting scholar UCSD), Nydia Pineda De Avila (UCSD)

Social Science Public Engagement Building, Room 721
UCSD

4:30 pm: Artistic Intervention - San Ysidro border 

Sara Leghissa

exact place tbd

6 pm: Grietas Del Idioma Poetry Reading with Music

The Front Arte y Cultura, 147 West San Ysidro Blvd, San Ysidro

Poets:
Reina Maria Rodriguez (Cuba),  Mohsen Emadi (Iran)

Musicians/Músicos:
Mariana Flores Bucio (voice/voz)
Boris Acosta Jaramillo (piano)
Wilfrido Terrazas (flutes/flautas, compositions/composiciones,
dirección/direction)

Reina María Rodriguez's poetry alternates gentle tones with bitter moments. Without falling into heavy lyricism or abstraction, she anchors her language in reality with a mixture of modesty and lucidity. Born on an island, she has experienced liminality and exile: her work makes words resonate to stir memories and seek correspondences between the immediate moment of the present and the traces of a past that never ceases to emerge in her mind. Mohsen Emadi's poetry is marked by a profound rejection, yet he shares with Reina María a taste for words that seem simple but are delicately put together. A stifled cry in his writing never gives in to the easy temptation to anger as the demands of poetic writing prevent over-schematic outbursts. The connection between these two works will resonate during a reading of their texts, and dialogue with the live music provided by Mariana Flores Bucio, Boris Acosta Jaramillo, and Wilfrido Terrazas.

RSVP

October 19
Centro Cultural Tijuana

*Presented in Spanish

12 pm - 2 pm Roundtable: Traducción más allá de las fronteras

Translation across borders and media: Mohsen Emadi (Iran), Radina Dimitriova (Rumania), Anisuz Zaman (Bangladesh), moderated by Anthony Harb (UCSD)

These three participants have developed unique practices of translation and dissemination of world literature from different places, conditions, and languages. Mohsen Emadi coordinates a website in Farsi that brings together dozens of translators around the world to bring world poetry into Farsi. He himself translates from Spanish poets such as Juan Gelman and José Emilio Pacheco. Radina Dimitriova, of Romanian origin, translates from Chinese into Spanish. Thanks to her efforts there is a much more accurate picture in Spanish of what is written in China today. Anisuz Zaman, from Bangladesh, translates both Bengali and Spanish. In particular, he has dedicated his work to bringing into Bengali fundamental works of 20th century Spanish-American narrative.

Public artistic intervention by Sara Leghissa

From the Lips to the Moon: Pouya Ehsaei and Tara Fatehi (Iran)

INVITATION FOR UCSD STUDENTS:

We are delighted to invite you a unique opportunity to spend two days with students and faculty from our closest neighboring academic institution in Mexico: Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Tijuana. This encounter will be the opening of Pasajes/Passage: an international forum on borders, exile, and artistic creation, a series of public humanities dialogues and artistic interventions that aims to inspire new perspectives on the relationship between our region, international migration contexts, and artistic creation.

On October 16 we will cross the border together and spend the day at the UABC campus in Tijuana. We will participate in a roundtable discussion with Philippe Ollé Laprune (visiting scholar at UCSD) and Julián Beltrán (UABC) on forced human displacements that trigger creative acts in Latin America and the US border. We will also attend the presentation of Taller California, a transborder independent publishing house for artist books created by our very own Lorena Mostajo. Lunch will be provided and there will be plenty of time for informal conversation with our colleagues in Tijuana.

On October 17 we will host our new friends at UCSD. There will be a lunch-talk with exiled poets Reina Maria Rodríguez (Cuba) and Mohsen Emadi (Iran-Mexico), followed by a student-guided tour of Barrio Logan and Chicano Park. The day will end with a stellar event at Mujeres Brew House featuring actor and playwright Etienne Minoungou (Burkina Faso), curator and artist Paulina León (Ecuador), and our new faculty member in Literature, fiction writer and scholar Nadia Villafuerte (Mexico). We are delighted to have Amy Sara Caroll as the presenter of the event.

Hopefully these two days of sharing intellectual conversation, meals, and fun will turn into a long standing relationship with our colleagues across the border. We would love you to create this foundation with us. 

Please sign up for student cohort here!

Sincerely,

The LAS team

RSVP

Pasajes/Passages is supported in part by a co-sponsorship from Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Cuajimalpa, Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, International Cities of Refuge Network, Universidad Autonoma de Baja California,The Front Gallery, Casa Familiar, UCSD International Institute, The UCSD CaliBaja Center for Resilient Materials and Systems, and UCSD History Department.