Arturo Desimone with World Poetry in Aruba, interview reposted: Power and Ancestors

Radio Neverno conducted an interview with Arturo Desimone, poet, writer, essayist and visual artist in 2018, which we repost here. The reason for this , is that we received the message that Desimone will teach a course at Aruba´s Art Education Institute at Ateliers 89, coming September 2026.

For those not familiar with Desimone, I got to know Arthur in Amsterdam, while he was roaming poetry festivals in Europe, The Caribean and South America. 

Aruba is still part of the Dutch state, but in The Netherlands, you don´t hear much on it.

We try to contact Arthur again to get an update on his current projects.

We will keep you updated!

THE INTERVIEW

Arturo Desimone was the co curator of 'Power and ancestors' in WM Galerie in Amsterdam, This show was visitable till April 7th, 2018.

Work of Enrique Collar


REPOSTED INTERVIEW with Desimone (audio only)

In this interview we talk on art, animism, power, ancestors, voodoo, social media, magic and the works in the exhibition dealing in one way or another with ancestry.

This interview is in English.

PART 1

Work of Ron Amir

PART 2

Work of Casper Prager

Unsafe interview with musical genius Mohsen Namjoo

Photo: Sina Khani & Mohsen Namjoo (Photo: Steven Bos)

We are very happy to be able to present the recording of the interview of Sina Khani (Creeps from the Middle East), Tarik Sadouma (The Rise of the Unsafe House), and Ruth Spetter (idem) conducted with Mohsen Namjoo after his concert in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Mohsen Namjoo is an Iranian musician and poet currently living in New York. In 2025 he is touring the world with his Minooor Show, a multimedia solo show, singing, reciting, playing the setar, and showing images. Minooor refers to the minor scale, according to some the only allowed musical scale in current Iran.

Mohsen Namjoo talks about his show, the use of sound and music, while in the background a selection of images are shown of the Green Movement, an oppositional political movement in Iran emerging in 2009.

This movement came to be after an apparently fraudulent presidential election in which the regime’s candidate, Ahmadinejad, became the winner, which was disputed by the opposition movement. The government arrested around 4,000 people and 72 people were killed during the protests.

Namjoo had already had a turbulent life and career, so it seems. After visiting the Tehran University of Art, he published his Toranj Album, which became a great success among the Iranian people but angered the government. In court he was sentenced to 5 years, in absentia, as he lived in Vienna at the time, for recording music that “dishonours passages from the Quran.”

The album featured nine traditional folk songs including poems of Rumi, Hafez, Baba Taher, and Attar, famous Persian poets of the past. It was mostly produced as underground music.

The story is, Namjoo was sentenced because of making animal sounds while singing the 91st Sura of the Quran. Because of this sentence, Namjoo will not return to his native country until the Islamist regime is sacked.

New work by poet Arturo Desimone

We are pleased to publish new work of Arturo Desimone at Radio Neverno.

Arturo Desimone is an artist and poet regularly publishing and performing in Europe and South America. 

'In a small Nation (Aruba.)' by Arturo Desimone

Radio Neverno · In A Small Nation (Aruba.) by Arturo Desimone

'Island Inter - Regnum' by Arturo Desimone

Radio Neverno · Island Inter - Regnum, poem by Arturo Desimone

'Aruban Rimbaudian Teenager Firecoral' by Arturo Desimone

Radio Neverno · Aruban - Rimbaudian Teenager Firecoral -Poem by Arturo Desimone