Paper short abstract:

I present examples of my fieldwork in various Belgian art structures. They demonstrate that cultural diversity does not form a category attached to existing categories of western art and taste. Rather it defies these by decentring Eurocentric interpretations of art.

Paper long abstract:

Artists and cultural agents relate to the diversity in our culture in often-innovative ways, challenging Eurocentric interpretations of art, oriëntalism, paternalism or other forms of discourse in which the "other" is reduced to a problem related historicized category. Through fieldwork during art processes I aim to research the paradoxes between Eurocentric interpretations of art and the multicultural practices. The selection of the practices refutes essentialist and marginalizing tendencies. It is not based on the origin of the artist (i.e. the ethnic-cultural descent) but on the relevant ways in which his/her practice relate to the diversity in our society. By presenting examples of several art agents, coming from various structures, such as community work, opera, theaters located in Brussels and Flanders, I aim to demonstrate that Cultural Diversity is not a project, a category that could be attached to existing categories of western art and taste, but that the diversity in our society forms a rich challenge to reinterpret art in ways that connects with a multicultural, postcolonial, gendered and glocalized network society.