New Perspectives on Memory(ies).Narratives.Future

From: “Decolonial Tours” (www.anguezomo-bikoro.com). © Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Foto: Jule Roehr

July 5th and 6th 2018

In this two-day symposium current social conditions in Berlin and Germany will be looked at  investigated & discussed from a decidedly historical perspective. More precisely, current racism and other forms of socially and institutionally produced exclusions and discriminations as well as resistance against them will be looked at and analysed in retrospective. The question of the role of archiving and documentation within the context of resistance strategies that are critical of racism and discrimination as well as anti- and decolonial movements will be central; and ‘looking back’ the basis and point of departure for potential prospects for the future within this context. Among others the following questions will be raised:

  • Do we have to find new forms of interventions, forming alliances and strategies of action for dealing with discrimination, hatred, and other politically motivated violence in all its forms?
  • What can we learn from past experiences and practices?
  • How can memory simultaneously provide a perspective for the future?
  • And what role does the cooperation of academics, activists, artists,… across several generations play in this regard?

Not least the symposium should  show how far a historical perspective can provide approaches for  better understanding and a more precise analysis of current social conditions and  at the same time hint at possibilities for solutions and range of action.  Above that, this symposium is also intended as an attempt to highlight the violent colonial history of archival storage and break through it with counter narratives.

We are looking forward to a keynote round with Nikita Dhawan, Fatima El-Tayeb and Macarena Gómez-Barris. Chair: Emilia Roig

Further information regarding the programme: www.xartsplitta.net/en/programme-new-perspectives/


An event by: xart splitta e.V.

In cooperation with and held at:

Nachbarschaftshaus Urbanstraße. Urbanstraße 21, 10961 Berlin. Directions: www.nachbarschaftshaus.de/kontakt/anfahrt/

Funded by:

Senate Department for Culture and Europe

With the friendly support of:

Akam Puram : Inner and Outer Wars of Tamil Women*

Thursday 24th May, 7pm

A Talking Dance Duet by Dr. Priya Srinivasan in collaboration with
Carnatic vocalist Uthra Vijay, Visual Design and photography by Arun Munoz. This performance features the poetry of Tamil women and heroines through time such as Avvayar from 3rd Century BCE to Kannagi, Andal, and a more recent female Tamil war colonel from Sri Lanka. Their texts and perspectives are placed in conversation with Srinivasan’s contemporary perspectives on the war on women and women’s bodies. At the same time the performance explores queer desire in this context. How can we reimagine alternate feminist aesthetics from the perspective of Tamil women’s engagement with war, violence, injustice, desire, and choice?

Roundtable/discussion with Iris Rajanayagam and Dr. Sandra Chatterjee
(Munich/Salzburg)

 

About Uthra Vijay Dr. Priya Srinivasan and Dr. Sandra Chatterjee

Uthra Vijay is the Artistic Director of Keerthana School of Music in Melbourne . She is an accomplished classical Indian Music Vocalist, composer and educator, winning several awards and performing in a range of venues in India, Australia and Europe. She has been collaborating
with Dr. Priya Srinivasan in unique experimentations between music dance. Her primary goal is to work both for the South Asian communities of Melbourne and for wider communities to open minds and hearts through music.

Dr. Priya Srinivasan is a dancer, scholar and choreographer originally from Melbourne who combines theory and practice. She has a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and has created the form of “talking dances” based on her award winning book “Sweating Saris Indian Dance as Transnational Labor.” Her work brings together live bodily performance with visual art, music, interactive multimedia and digital technology to think about archives of the body, migration, and
female labor working with many collaborators -foremost among them is Carnatic singer Uthra Vijay. Her work has been presented in diverse settings in many theatre houses, galleries, universities, museums,
parks, historic buildings, and in public spaces around the globe. Her goal is to use art to create connections and bring down walls between diverse peoples.

Dr. Sandra Chatterjee is founding-member of the Post Natyam Collective, teaches, researches, performs and organizes projects at the intersection of theory and artistic practice, focusing on gender, postcolonial and migration studies. Her current research critically interrogates “contemporary” dance (in Europe) in the context of articulating culturally marked aesthetic difference/multeity. www.sandrachatterjee.net

Photography credit: Arun Munoz

DGS Kurs mit Diana Spieß – 15.09.-17.11. 2018 – German Sign Language Course

Wir freuen uns in diesem Jahr einen neuen DGS I Kurs mit Diana Spieß anbieten zu können. Der Kurs umfasst 10 Termine vom 15. September bis 17. November 2018 und findet jede Woche samstags von 13-14:30 Uhr in den Räumen von xart splitta statt. In dieser ersten Kursstufe lernen die Teilnehmenden grundlegende Kenntnisse zur Deutschen Gebärdensprache wie das Fingeralphabet, Vokabeln, Fragewörter, Zahlen und einfache Sätze. Außerdem werden die Teilnehmenden in drei wichtigen Grundtechniken der Deutschen Gebärdensprache eingeführt: die visuelle Wahrnehmung, die Mimik und die nonverbale sowie gestische Kommunikation.

 

Zu Diana Spieß:

Bist DU taub? ICH bin es! „GEBÄRDENSPRACHE IST SPANNEND, VIELFÄLTIG UND WOW!“

Diana Spieß wuchs in einer tauben und gebärdensprachnutzenden Familie als taub Geborene auf. Sie ist auf dem Gebiet der Gebärdensprache Muttersprachlerin. Von frühster Kindheit an bestand ihr Interesse an einem Austausch mit der hörenden Welt. Nach einer Ausbildung und der beruflichen Tätigkeit als Sozialpädagogische Assistentin, qualifizierte sie sich erfolgreich zur Gebärdensprachdozentin. Seit dem ist sie neben vielen anderen Sozialen- und Schulprojekten im Bereich der Gebärdensprachvermittlung sehr aktiv.

Homepage: www.lebendige-gebaerden.de

 

Der Kurs ist nun ausgebucht. Wir hoffen ihn nächstes Jahr wieder anbieten zu können.

 

 

DISSOLVING TERRITORIES – 3+ Death

3+ Death
April 26th, 8pm @ Mosaik-KulturEtage, Oranienstr. 34 (rear building), 10999 Berlin.

With Senthuran Varatharajah and Sinthujan Varatharajah.

What does it mean to die in exile? What happens to the bodies of stateless people after their demise? What impact do expulsions and border policies have on rituals of death for people living in exile? And what role does the question of forced migration and landlessness play in dying?

What role does death play for those who have escaped it? How does the diaspora relate to that, which was the reason for there bring a diaspora?

These are the questions we will address in the third and, for now last event of our series Dissolving Territories. We warmley welcome you to join us in the discussion.

The event will take place in German spoken language. Questions can be asked in English. The space is wheelchair accessible. There is a lift at U-Bahnhof Kottbusser Tor.

The guest speaker:

Senthuran Varatharajah  studied philosophy, theology and cultural studies in Marburg, Berlin and London. In 2016 he published his award-winning debut novel “Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen” (S. Fischer). Among others it was awarded with the 3Sat Prize at the “38th Days of German-Language Literature”, the Alfred Doblin Fellowship of the Berlin Academy of Arts, the Berlin Senate Fellowship, the Kranichsteiner Literaturförderpreis, the Bremer Literaturförderpreis, the Chamisso Award and the Rauriser Literaturpreis.


About the series:

In this three-part series various questions within the context of life in the diaspora/in exile are highlighted and discussed from a decidedly Tamil perspective. We aim at consciously centering Tamil voices and approaches  while working on and analysing these questions; voices that have always been marginalised and silenced by various parties and/or are unheard or not listened to. We want to look at cultures of memory and the construction of narratives through the prism of an Eelam-Tamil point of view and thus endeavour to debate questions of identity and belonging as well as to deconstruct local myths around the topics migration, flight and resistance in Germany.

Further information: www.xartsplitta.net/en/tamil-perspectives/

My Fluid Body (On An Uneven Political Ground)

A performance by ADI LIRAZ

Friday, June 8th, 6pm

Our bodies carry our personal and political histories. These
histories re-inscribe our internal and external world. Our actions in any social space are to a certain extent guided and shaped by theses scripts; Sometimes, to such extent that we reproduce our ancestral past without any conscious awareness.

This work researches through collecting, archiving, re-creating textiles and performing the story of Liraz´s grandmother, her mother, her grandmother and her great grandmother and through that shapes a Jewish identity which is independent from the colonial idea and previous to the Shoah, and rooted in the rich past of the Jewish community in Ioannina, Greece.

Through a four-chapter performance, Liraz re-creates a process of embodying history/ies and being alive as shaped and shifted by the colonial gaze of German and Israeli nationalisms. She explores the inscribed past of previous generations of her family in her own body of existence, marking the connection between the personal and the collective. By creating an organic space made out of those experiences, Liraz produces new channels to share those collectively. The interactive performance aims to create a temporarily set counter-public and a sense of solidarity.

The event will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Mai Zeidani Yufanyi .

Adi Liraz is an interdisciplinary artist. In her work, she often bridges private and public experiences, discourses and spaces. She reflects on her personal and collective identity, particularly on her role in society as a migrant, woman and mother. The aim of Liraz´s work is to generate communication and critical exposure of hegemonic perceptions.

Liraz received a BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (2001) and an MA from the Art Academy Berlin Weißensee (“Art in Public Context, Spatial Strategies”, 2014).  Between 2015 and 2016 Liraz was a member of and a coordinator for actions and eventat the Salaam Schalom Initiative, she is a founding member of NOMEN Collective and part of the duo ExDress. Liraz has exhibited, curated and performed, among others, at District Berlin (2013), Hysteria collective at Soma gallery, Berlin (2015), COVEN Berlin(2015), Musrara Mix Festival, Jerusalem (2015), 48 Hours Neukölln Art Festival (2015), Month of Performance Art Berlin (2013, 2015), Alphanova & Galerie Futura, Berlin (2016), the art vending machine at the Jewish Museum Berlin(2017) and at SAVVY Contemporary (2017). adiliraz.com

Mai Zeidani Yufanyi is a social scientist and activist. Her work explores postcolonial migration societies in Europe and the processes of identity-making in Palestine and Israel. She is a project officer with Insaan e.V., the co-host of Reboot.fm’s radio show, Talking Feminisms and an activist with the Caravan of Migrants and Refugees.