Contemporary Art and Cultural Continuity in Diaspora : The Assyrian Case

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines cultural production to retain cultural continuity within a stateless diasporic group. Cultural continuity is central to maintaining cultural life, and this thesis takes as its point of departure the question of how such continuity can be maintained without institutional or nation-state support. The study investigates the Assyrian group and is based on five semi-structured interviews with two Assyrian curators and three artists that create work within the Assyrian contemporary art community. The aim has been to understand how they perceive and articulate their own practices as ways of sustaining and negotiating cultural continuation within their group. Following the interviews, three central themes emerged that were analyzed with Stuart Hall’s theoretical framework on cultural identity as a production and constant transformation. The three themes were (1) The Signifier and the Signified, (2) Representation as Formative, and (3) Continuation through Production. The first presents how contemporary artistic production renegotiates symbols that are part of the traditional visual language and employ them in new settings. This is done by reassembling the symbols using new materials and expressions. The second theme discusses the formative role of representation, highlighting how visual portrayals of Assyrianness actively participate in producing the identity they depict. Finally, the explicit draw towards creativity and artistic production as a way of keeping the culture alive was expressed in the third theme. Drawing on Hall’s theoretical framing of cultural identity as a process of continuous production, the artists and curators are understood as actively engaging in cultural creation. Their art and exhibitions function as renegotiations of visual language through which Assyrianness is expressed in a contemporary context.