The outcomes, encounters and queries can be accessed through the digital archive representing voices and perspectives of 70+ artists while “Ilk” and “Ancestral Body Noise” opens up the process further to local communities.
‘Ilk tracks the roots of tolerated queer practices that goes centuries back in the Arabic and Muslim societies, basing the performance on 13th century manuscripts bridging it to all the erasure that has been applied in modern times, and understanding how the queer Arab and Muslim identity can emerge from reclaiming times were queerness and homosexuality been accepted, tolerated and even studied. It aims for a queer Arab Muslim futuristic vision, that starts with healing through rewriting our histories on our terms. Led by the social artist and dance movement therapist Ahmad Hijazi continues to practice critical collective workshops and emphasing on empowerment on bodies of color and by putting queer affirmative care into practice.
Ancestral Body Noise is a project linking individuals working on their own process of ancestral technology, of embodied memory in performance practice, activism and cultural work. Explorations of how culture, inheritance, archival of rituals in the body continues to transform itself over time, while developing articulations of transformations through movement, gesture and sound. It continues to open the process to the public, inviting individuals, negotiating concepts of home, and the (re)construction of ritual for radical empathy in their political and psycho-spiritual practice. Gugulethu ‘Dumama’ Duma exploring the role of ritual in performance art takes poetry, movement and sounds as tools of social transformation and healing to migrant communities.
Mirage is a durational video work by performance artist Avril Stormy Unger based on the redefinition of self and identity, through the journey of unpacking internalized societal expectations.
Nane Kahle guides participants through ancient Egyptian practice of “Tjef Sema Paut Neteru” retracing the memories inscribed in bodies and the way they carry different historicities, identities and affiliations.
The Geography of Hate by Artist-Activist Sujatro Ghosh questions hate as a tool for systematic violence and authorisation through performative collaborations.
The Mirage, is a performance intervention by Avril Stormy Unger, highlighting structural inequalities in accessing basic necessities such as healthcare and clean water in India.
DCADV: Exocé Kasongo explores different narratives of the continent Africa with the aim of opening up multiple perspectives for young Afro-Diasporic people through experimental storytelling and performance interventions.
Ascension is a durational performance project curated by Dr. Maiada Aboud about gender, femininity and menstruation aimed at building a community debate around taboos and forbidden corners of the female body.
Who will we be when you stop telling us? A loved one dies. How do his next of kin - partner and son - experience and process the time of dying, of mourning? Cornelia and Kerim Becker present their questions and sought answers in artistic, lyrical, and musical language.