12th Urban Culture Forum, 'Arts and Social Outreach - Designs for Urban Dignity' by The Urban Research Plaza, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, convened by Kjell Skyllstad, 3rd - 4th March 2014

A Dual Call for Papers had been issued for The Urban Research Plaza's 12th Urban Culture Forum, and for the Journal of Urban Culture Research. Presentations were invited spanning the wide and diverse field of urban culture. The questions below is offered as evocative guidelines rather than requirements:
'How can we open the world of art for all (children, youth, elderly, disabled, disadvantaged)? How can we promote artistic expressions of minority groups? What are the means of enlarging participation in artistic activities among urban populations? How can art stimulate and promote citizens interaction in urban planning and design? How can art activism confront urban patterns of gender inequality and humiliating practices? How can the artist community contribute to solving urban conflicts and restoring human dignity? What allows traditional cultures and values to survive? How can artists contribute to the preservation of national art treasures? What measures can be taken to promote cultural continuity in urban environments? What is the place of arts education in promoting social and environmental awareness? In short: How can we promote art for social dignity?'

• 01 Guest of Honor & Keynote: A Conversation with Deeyah, human rights activist, film director, music producer/composer, with host Kjell Skyllstad, Professor, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, on Arts and Social Outreach: Designs for Urban Dignity.

• 02 Banaz: A Love Story, by Deeyah Khan
Five videos were recorded after the showing of the film 'Banaz: A Love Story'. In these five videos, Deeyah, the producer of 'Banaz: A Love Story', responds to questions to her work. The videos were recorded by Evelin Lindner. Please note that these videos are unedited.
See:
• Dialogue 1
• Dialogue 2
• Dialogue 3
• Dialogue 4
• Dialogue 5
Read also:"This Woman Was Murdered For a Kiss in a Train Station," by Deeyah Khan, Huffington Post, February 21, 2014.

• 03 What is Urban Dignity? How Do We Achieve It?, Evelin Gerda Lindner
(Due to technical issues, this presentation could not be given in its full length.) Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.
Abstract: Unity in diversity is at the center of urban dignity. It means that people of all classes and colors intermingle in a spirit of mutual care and respect. Traditionally, throughout the past millennia, uniformity in division has been practised almost everywhere on the planet: to strengthen their competitive advantage over enemy out-groups, in-groups maintained a strictly unequal domination of higher beings over lesser beings. Unity in diversity is a more complex experience because it requires the readiness and ability to consider everybody else as equal in dignity, and it calls for the skills to actually enter into dialogue with equals. As long as such a culture is not yet established, unity in diversity has the potential to trigger uneasiness, including feelings of humiliation, and can lead to attempts to cleanse and exclude diversity so as to return to the more familiar and less complex experience of uniformity in division. Urban contexts are prime experimental laboratories for this transition. For urban dignity to flourish and social and ecological sustainability to emerge, interdisciplinary debate and sharing needs to overcome the traditional practise of domination over people and over nature. Urban dignity flourishes when the city is regarded in terms of a family that collaborates in mutual communal sharing and stewardship of their environment, while urban dignity collapses when priority is given to clambering for power and status, be it through overt oppression or cloaked as economic necessities. Artists have a central role in creating conditions for social interactions of dignity rather than humiliation. One example was given by Oslo citizens when they reacted to the 22 July 2011 terror attacks in Norway by gathering in front of the courthouse singing 'The Rainbow People'. Music unites.

• 04 From Humiliation to Dignity: Designs for a Just Peace, Anne Cathrine Eklund
Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.

• 05 Wall of Sex, Doctor of Fine and Applied Arts (DFA) Students' Group
Chulalongkorn University (this important presentation deals with & displays mature subject matter that may be offensive to some; viewer discretion is advised)
Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.

• 05 A Community Outreach Model of Nan City: An Investigation of Musical Diversity in Eastern Lanna, Thailand, Pornprapit Phoasavadi, Assistant Professor, Chulalongkorn University
Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.

• 07 Music and Social Change – The Mozart Effect Revisited, Kjell Skyllstad, Professor, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University
Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.

• 08 Spirit of Nature, Doctor of Fine and Applied Arts (DFA) Students' Group, Chulalongkorn University
Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.

• 09 White Shadows: Kyoto's Hanamachi Bijin Manufacture & The Portrayal of Female Characters, Daniel de Fazio, Goldsmiths University of London
Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.

• 10 A Message from the Amazon: Dan Baron from Cabelo Seco, at the Frontier of the Industrialisation of the Amazon
Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.

• 11 Asian Futures: Designs for Urban Dignity, Shin Nakagawa, Osaka City University, Japan with Kjell Skyllstad
Deeyah Khan kindly did the recording. Please note that this video is unedited.