2021

Friday December 17th, 4pm

The event will take place online.

The Living Archives is an online platform that aims to document, archive and pass on content and knowledge created in BIPoC communities. Furthermore, the site is to be used as a learning portal for these communities to share and add to this knowledge.
The online platform was launched for the first time on November 19th, 2020. Now we are one year down the line – and a lot has happened.

The aim is to collect (lost and/or deleted) content and knowledge that is/was generated within BIPoC contexts and make it accessible to these communities.
xart splitta understands The Living Archives as a “Resistant Knowledge Project” (Patricia Hill Collins). In this context archiving, documenting and sharing knowledge is understood as a decolonial act. The concept of the archive is redefined here with regard to its colonial, racist context of origin and used as a means of “counter-narrative”.

It’ s happening: The second launch of The Living Archives! Celebrate with us the further development of the digital community platform!

On December 17th we are looking forward to the performances of Mandhla and Ginnie Bekoe. As well as a panel conversation about “I Know What I Know!”, embodied knowledge and critical knowledge (re)production with the performer Mandhla and Ginnie Bekoe and Saboura Naqshband und Nicola Lauré al-Samarai!

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Programm

16.00h – 17.00h Welcome, launch 2.0, presentation of the homepage and review with Juliana Kolberg (xart splitta) and as returning guest Iris Rajanayagam. 

17.00h- 17.30h Performance by Mandhla

17.30h – 19.00h Panel discussion incl. Q&A with Mandhla, Ginnie Bekoe, Saboura Naqshband and Nicola Lauré al-Samarai. Moderated by: Juliana Kolberg

19.00h – 19.30h Performance spoken word by Ginnie Bekoe

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The event will take place in German and English spoken language with interpretation DE-ENG and DGS (german sign language).

Pls. register via contact@xartsplitta.net.

The Living Archives is funded by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb.

Speakers

Mandhla. is a 24 year old trans-feminine gender non-comforming body born and raised in Zimbabwe, Africa. As a current resident between Berlin and Cologne, she brings a blend of experimental R&B and Soul music intertwined with visual projections and performative dancing. Her music speaks of the daily trials that Trans*, enby and femme* immigrant bodies experience daily with love, identity, sex and acceptance.
A strong lover of fashion, the art of voguing and music, she promises to bring to you an experience that takes you to a world of beauty and divine epiphanies through fierce queer representation and black femme* power. 
As a political and social activist, she is a part of the BIPoC collective, DEMASK, which strives in creating safer spaces for QT (Queer, Trans) BIPoC in Cologne and surrounding areas. mandhla. (wordpress.com) 

Ginnie Bekoe ist ein*e Schwarze Aktivist*in und macht Vorträge, Workshops und Poetry vorranging zu den Verschwurbelungen von Schwarzsein, beHinderung, Fatness & Queerness. Dabei schöpft Ginnie aus der eigenen Identität und eigenen Erfahrungen, wie auch weitergegebenem Wissen (sogar aus Büchern!). Darüberhinaus beschäftigt sich Ginnie extensiv mit Babyelephanten und Eiscreme.

Nicola Lauré al-Samarai Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaftlerin (historian, cultural theorist). Zu ihren Interessenschwerpunkten gehören BPoC-Geschichte in Deutschland sowie diasporische Bewegungs-, Erinnerungs- und Kulturpolitiken im weitesten Sinne. Sie arbeitet als Autorin und Lektorin sowie als Kuratorin und Vermittlerin im Bereich historisch-politische Bildung und war an verschiedenen Buch- und Ausstellungsprojekten beteiligt, darunter Labor 89: Intersektionale Bewegungsgeschichte*n aus West und Ost und Decolonize ’68! – Bewegungsgeschichtliche Erfahrungen von Schwarzen Frauen und Frauen of Color.

Friday, 12^th of November 2021, 10 AM-6 PM 

Here comes another round of In.Solidarity – Pls. find here what we did last year, together with the ndo. 

In Covid, Crisis & Care we will discuss the covid-19 pandemic, crises and (self-) care from a cross-community perspective. Crises are not uncommon, especially for people with intersectional experiences of discrimination; stressful or traumatic experiences are rather an everyday life reality. However, a common global pandemic is a new dimension for all of us. Therefore, we would like to talk about: 2 years of Covid – what have we learned and how will it continue?
Which coping strategies have BIPoC communities developed for crises so far? Which ones have changed in the Covid 19 pandemic? Which ones are new? What are similar and different starting points, experiences and consequences? What could be a useful actual allyship? Where do we need more solidarity(s) with each other? 

In the four workshops we will discuss possibilities of support, allyship and empowerment from different perspectives and with the support of different inputs. Afterwards, we will end the day together with a closing panel. In this panel, we will bring together the discussions of the workshops and jointly envision and address future perspectives. 

Programme

10 am-3pm workshops:

Workshop 1: Empowerment Crisesmanagement & (Self-) Care for BIPoC

Workshop 2: Allyship & Awareness for BIPoC

Workshop 3: Possibilities of allyship for white people

11am-2pm: Healing Circle for BIPoC

4.30pm-6pm: Final panel In.Solidarity with Anifa Heinrich, Can Tunç and Dee. Moderated by Tuğba Tanyılmaz and Juliana Kolberg.

Registration: 
Participation in the event is only possible with prior registration. The workshops will take place parallel with but on a different channel than the closing panel. The number of participants for the workshops is limited. 

Please register by Friday, 05.11.2021 via contact@xartsplitta.net. 

Please note: Some workshops are designed as safe spaces and are only open to BIPoC. The panel is open for everybody.

It would be great if you could write something about the following points in your registration: 

• Which workshop do you want to participate in?
• Would you also like to attend the closing panel? 
• Why have you decided to participate in the workshop/closing panel? 
• How have you dealt with the topic of the workshop and cross-community solidarity(s) so far? 
   

The event will take place online and in presence. In English and in German spoken language with interpretation german – english, as well as german sign language.

The event takes place in cooperation with ComE In, a Migrationsrat Berlin e.V. 
project and within the project #CommunitiesSolidarischDenken, funded by LADS. 

With Dr.Chandra Frank, Gayatri Gopinath, Rena Onat and Saida-Mahalia Saad
moderated by Kathy-Ann Tan

Monday, Ocotber 25th, 6pm CET, online and in English spoken language

What do (queer) diasporic body archives mean for our communities? How do we (re)produce knowledge when we think of diasporic body archives? How can kinship and relationality be understood from a queer and diasporic perspective? Which role do narratives of cultural/collective memory play in our everyday (professional) practice?

Our final event of the reading circle Queer of Colour Critique will be a panel discussion moderated by Kathy-Ann Tan with our guest panellists Dr. Chandra Frank and Gayatri Gopinath. The facilitators of the Queer of Colour Critique reading circle Rena Onat and Saida-Mahalia Saad will join with their thoughts and observations that have emerged from and within the reading group.

Since May 2021 Rena Onat and Saida-Mahalia Saad have facilitated a monthly reading group focusing on writings by José Esteban Muñoz, Sara Ahmed, Gloria Anzaldúa, Riley Snorton and Jin Haritaworn. Central questions in the discussions were: How can we bring science and knowledge that is produced by QTIBIPoCs back to the Communities? Which meaning does our empirical knowledge and our political practice have for these theories and concepts?  How can we understand these theories in the sense of bell hooks “Liberatory Practice” and “Healing Theory”? How can we deal with the fact that most of these theories have their origin in the USA and are in English?

Please register for the event via contact@xartsplitta.net until Friday, October 22nd, 2021.

Kathy-Ann Tan is a Berlin-based curator, writer and independent scholar of the visual arts and performance, postcolonial and decolonial theory, critical diversity studies and gender/queer studies. She is interested in alternative models of art dissemination, exhibition-making and institution-building that are attuned to issues of social- and transformative justice. Her ongoing project www.decolonialartarchives.com aims to collaboratively build an online and offline forum for artists and curators to develop ways of interrogating colonial narratives and countering neo-colonial forms of domination and control. As a former full-time academic, she has extensive experience in teaching, research, publishing and public speaking. Kathy-Ann also teaches courses at the Node Center for Curatorial Studies, and recently completed an MA Curatorial Practice at University of Bergen, Norway.  

Dr. Chandra Frank is a feminist researcher who works on the intersections of archives, waterways, gender, sexuality and race. Her curatorial practice explores the politics of care, experimental forms of narration, and the colonial grammar embedded within display and exhibition arrangements. She has published in peer-reviewed journals, exhibition catalogues and art publications, including Feminist Review, the Small Axe VLOSA catalogue, The Place is Here, Tongues, Foam Magazine and Stedelijk Studies. Chandra recently co-edited a special issue on Archives for Feminist Review. She is working on her monograph, Glimmers of Place: Queer Feminist Archives, Diaspora and Tidal Politics (working title), and is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Charles Phelps Taft Research Centre at the University of Cincinnati. 

GayatriGopinath is Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, and the Director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. She works at the intersection of transnational feminist and queer studies, postcolonial studies, and diaspora studies, and is the author of two monographs: Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures (Duke University Press, 2005), and Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora (Duke University Press, 2018). She has published numerous essays on gender, sexuality, and queer diasporic visual art and culture in anthologies and journals such as Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, GLQ, and Social Text, as well as in art publications such as PIX: A Journal of Contemporary Indian Photography, Tribe: Photography and New Media from the Arab World, and ArtReview Asia. 

Rena Onat is an art and media scientist interested in queer of colour critique in art and visual culture. She wrote her doctoral thesis on “Orientations. Queer artists of colour and negotiations of disidentification, survival and (un)archiving in the German context” at the University of Oldenburg. An important focus of her work is anti-discrimination in the art and university context. She currently works as a women’s representative at weißensee kunsthochschule berlin. Rena positions herself as a German-Turkish femme of colour and likes horses.

Saida-Mahalia Saad studies Sociocultural Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt Oder. Saida holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Studies and is a trained experiential educator. Saida works as a consultant for political education with a focus on discrimination-sensitive language, racism, empowerment, gender and sexual diversity. Target groups include pupils, students, teachers and school educators. At xart splitta, Saida works in the team of the reading group Queer of Colour Critique.

This event takes place within the LADS-funded project #CommunitiesSolidarischDenken.

DGS I: Mittwochs, 15. September – 1. Dezember 2021, 17:00-18:30h

DGS II: Dienstags, 14. September – 30. November 2021, 19:00-20:30h

*These courses will take place online in German Sign Language*

Wir freuen uns, im Herbst wieder DGS Kurse (DGS I & DGS II) Kurs mit Diana Spieß und dem Team von Lebendige Gebärden anbieten zu können.

Der erste Kurs (DGS I) findet im Zeitraum vom 15. September bis 1. Dezember 2021 mittwochs von 17:00-18:30h online statt. Am 10. und 17. November findet kein Kurs statt!

Der zweite Kurs (DGS II) findet im Zeitraum vom 14. September bis 30. November dienstags von 19:00-20:30h online statt. Am 9. und 16. November findet kein Kurs statt!

Beide Kurse umfassen 10 Termine und werden von Marko Salutzki geleitet.

Zur Anmeldung oder bei Fragen zu den Teilnahmebedingungen, schreibt bitte bis zum 3. September 2021 eine E-Mail an: contact@xartsplitta.net.

Bitte beachtet folgende Hinweise:

• Personen, die sich für DGS II anmelden möchten und nicht an einem DGS I Kurs bei xart splitta bzw. Lebendige Gebärden teilgenommen haben, werden gebeten, die Absolvierung der vorigen Niveaustufe(n) oder entsprechende Vorkenntnisse durch ein Skype-Interview nachzuweisen.
• Eine Teilnahmebescheinigung kann von Lebendige Gebärden nur ausgehändigt werden, wenn eine Teilnahme am Kurs von 70% oder höher vorliegt.
• Ein oder zwei Stunden vor dem Kursbeginn erhalten Teilnehmende eine E-Mail mit den Zugangsdaten und anderen wichtigen Informationen für die Kursteilnahme über Webcam.
• Eine dolmetschende Person wird bei Kursbeginn anwesend sein.
• Nach der Einführung erhalten Teilnehmende die Unterrichtsmaterialen per E-Mail und im Chat bei Zoom. Diese können im Nachhinein ausdruckt werden. Das Unterrichtsmaterial ist nur für teilnehmende Personen bestimmt und darf nicht an Dritte weitergegeben werden.

Kursinhalte DGS I:

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.

Sitzung 01 – Einführung Teil 1 – Grundtechniken der visuellen Modalität etc.
Sitzung 02 – Einführung Teil 2 – Grundtechniken der visuellen Modalität & Fragen
Sitzung 03 – Personalpronomen, Possessivpronomen, Demonstrativpronomen
Sitzung 04 – Ausdrücke für Bitten und Nachfragen, Bejahung und Verneinung
Sitzung 05 – Personenbezogene Richtungsverb, Benefaktivpronomen
Sitzung 06 – Vollverben „haben“ und „da sein“
Sitzung 07 – Grundzahlen
Sitzung 08 – Ordnungszahlen, Modalverben mit Alpha-Verneinung
Sitzung 09 – Bedeutung und Differenzierung von ZUSAMMEN
Sitzung 10 – Was gehört wem? und Wo ist das?

Kursinhalte DGS II:

Bei DGS II bekommst du einen weiteren Einblick in die Gehörlosenkultur. Natürlich machen wir auch mit der Gebärdensprache weiter. Die Vokabeln, die du schon bei DGS I gelernt hast, werden wiederholt, um sicherzugehen, dass du nichts vergessen hast. Dazu lernst du viele neue Vokabeln für Gefühle und Emotionen. Ein großes Thema bei DGS II ist Zeit: das heißt viele Gebärden für Wochentage, Monate und andere Zeitangaben. Zudem erfährst du, wie man Uhrzeiten auf DGS ausdrückt. Da kommt auch die Zeitlinie hinzu; sie ist ein wichtiger Teil der Grammatik der DGS, denn man drückt damit Tempus aus. Die Struktur von Aussage- und Entscheidungsfragesätzen wird geübt und die im Kurs gelernten Gebärden und Strukturen werden durch Dialogübungen gestärkt.

Sitzung 01 – Geschichte der Gehörlosenschule, Kultur der Gehörlosen
Sitzung 02 – Aussage oder Entscheidungsfragesatz
Sitzung 03 – Zeitlinien
Sitzung 04 – Die un- und bestimmte Zeitangaben
Sitzung 05 – Inkorporation bei „Woche“
Sitzung 06 – Inkorporation bei „Jahr“
Sitzung 07 – Euro und Cent
Sitzung 08 – Inkorporation bei „Woche“ – Übungen, Verben
Sitzung 09 – Inkorporation bei „Jahr“ – Übungen, Verben
Sitzung 10 – Bewegungsbeschreibung, Verbe

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. Seitdem ist sie neben vielen anderen Sozial- und Schulprojekten im Bereich der Gebärdensprachvermittlung sehr aktiv.

Weitere Infomationen zu Diana Spieß und Lebendige Gebärden findet unter: www.lebendige-gebaerden.de

Diese Veranstaltung findet im Rahmen des, von der LADS geförderten Projektes #CommunitiesSolidarischDenken statt.

Part III

**PLEASE NOTE: This event had to be postponed by one week to August 11th, 7pm**

**All events will take place online**

On August 11th, we continue with the third and last event of the third season of our series »Dissolving Territories | cultural geographies of a new eelam«.  This year’s edition is being held in cooperation with the Bildungswerk Berlin of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

»DISSOLVING TERRITORIES« deals with issues of exile, displacement and statelessness from a specifically Eelam-Tamil perspective. This series seeks to bring these realities and lived experiences into focus; lifeworlds that have consistently  been ignored, placed out of context and silenced both inside and outside of Germany. With this series we want to take a look at the everyday cultures of memory and resistance of Eelam-Tamils and attempt to discuss territorial and cultural geographic issues as well as deconstruct local myths around the issues of flight and resistance in Germany.

The third season of »Dissolving Territories« is dedicated to the aspect of solidarity between different oppressed and stateless peoples: we will bring together Eelam-Tamil and Kurdish perspectives and explicitly look for intersections in relation to experiences in (German) exile. Topics we willbe  addressing include:

• 7+ Digital Landscapes
• 8+ Fabrics and clothing
• 9+ Births in exile

The series »Dissolving Territories« was jointly initiated and conceptualised by Iris Rajanayagam (xart splitta) and Sinthujan Varatharajah. For the third season, we are pleased to have Elif Küçük with us, who will be contributing to the series on both a conceptual as well as artistic level.

9+ Birth in Exile

Wednesday, August 11th 2021, 7pm

Guest Speaker: Melek Erdal

**This event will take place online in English spoken language**

To birth in exile is to bring to new life in exile. In this last episode of Dissolving Territories’ third season, we will explore what it means for Eelam Tamils and for Kurds to give birth in exile – and what it means to be born in exile.

Who are the children born in displacement? How does birth in exile differ from birth in a homeland? What is the potential and role of people born in exile in the struggle against statelessness? And does exile create new kinds of people? In light of these questions, we get into conversation with Melek Erdal. The event will open with a short presentation by Sinthujan Varatharajah. This will be followed by a panel discussion with:

• Sinthujan Varatharajah, Elif Küçük and Melek Erdal
• Moderation: Iris Rajanayagam (xart splitta)

Registration via the Bildungswerk Berlin of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

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Sinthujan Varatharajah is a political geographer, essayist and researcher based in Berlin. Varatharajah’s work focuses on geographies of power, displacement and statelessness. In 2020, Varatharajah was part of the 11th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art with the exhibition “how to* move an ark”. In spring 2022, Varatharajah’s first book will be published by Hanserblau.

Elif Küçük is a visual artist and art director from Berlin. She works with the means of photography and videography, digital illustration and animation. Her work focuses on visual explorations of tenderness, solidarity and resistance. Since October 2020, she has been working as an editorial designer at in the ze.tt department of ZEIT ONLINE.

Melek Erdal is a Kurdish cook, teacher, writer and documentary filmmaker based in London.

The event takes place in cooperation with the Bildungswerk Berlin of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and within the framework of the LADS-funded project #CommunitiesSolidarischDenken.

Realised with funds from the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin.