Adrian Piper Escape to Berlin, 2024
CONCEPTUAL POETICS DAY 2024
Saturday, October 12, 2024
Miss Read Stage
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
View Map
FREE ENTRY
PROGRAM
12:00 – 13:00 Paul Wood, Sezgin Boynik (Rab-Rab Press)
Biting the Hand, Art & Language Diaspora
Edited, compiled and introduced by Paul Wood, Biting the Hand: Traces of Resistance in the Art & Language Diaspora tells the story of a dissident formation of artists active in the UK in the 1970s and 80s. Influenced by Conceptual art, these radical artists tried to develop new forms of critical intervention just at the time when post-war social democracy went into crisis and neo-liberalism emerged as the dominant political formation. Paul Wood in conversation with Sezgin Boynik, will present the ideas behind making this book, and focus on a story of artists beginning with a critique of then contemporary modernist art education.
13:00 – 14:00 Tamara Hartman (Archival Textures), Tabea Nixdorff (Archival Textures)
Archival Textures: A Conversation on Publishing Archival Traces of Transnational Queer Feminist Solidarity
A conversation on queer feminist archives, framed by the artist-initiated project, intergenerational network and publisher Archival Textures, of which the first season consists of five books that make texts researched in Dutch queer and feminist archives available in print, and globally accessible by providing English translations. A special focus will be set on the most recent publication Republishing: Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant: A book that derived from the Black Women’s Magazine Umoja, published between 1985 and 1986 in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and whose legacy has gotten no recognition. The Archival Textures books trace transnational alliances and friendships, such as Audre Lorde’s visits to the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. A red thread throughout this conversation will be the question: How can publications become low-threshold archives, and help weave an intergenerational fabric of belonging?
14:00 – 14:45 Senthuran Varatharajah, Eric Otieno Sumba (HKW Berlin)
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Senthuran Varatharajah reads his text “As We Forgive“ (2024) from the Forgive Us Our Trespasses Reader. The reader conceptually maps the distance between the English word “trespasses”—with its double meaning of to sin or to physically tread—and the German word “Schuld”—referring to sin and guilt but with etymological proximities to debt (Schulden). Deviating from the line of prayer that lends the project its name, the contributors assert trespassing as a mode of transgression, a form of rebellion, and a possibility for transcendence.
14:45 – 15:30 Andrea Macias-Yañez, Cassie Thornton (Feminist Economics Department), Florence Freitag, María Inés Plaza Lazo (AWC), Sarah Adelaide, moderated by Chris Hoff (Thick Press)
An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping: A Reading and Discussion
An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping invites the reader to wander through a collection of interconnected entries on helping and healing by over 200 contributors from the worlds of social work and family therapy; art and design; body work and witchery; organizing and education; and more.
15:30 – 16:00 James Langdon (HfG Karlsruhe), Tim Bartel (BookBoi*, HfG Karlsruhe)
Typography Without Lines
Why do we persist in reading text in long, thin lines of type? Why do those lines end arbitrarily, when no more words fit in the given space, and not deliberately, in service of the rhythm and meaning of the text? What is reading even, if not the action of moving one’s eyes along a line of words in order to comprehend their meaning? The answers to these question are not as self-evident as they might seem. They are entangled in centuries of writing and reading practices.
16:00 – 17:00 Clara Balaguer (WDKA), Stephanie Choi (RISD), Sami Khatib (BIU), moderated by Pouya Ahmadi (Amalgam, RISD)
Amalgam #5—AlieNation: Journal Launch
The fifth installment of Amalgam delves into the politics of alienation, exploring how these dynamics act as conduits for violence in its many forms.
17:00 – 18:00 Simon Morris (Leeds Beckett University), Fraser Muggeridge (Leeds Beckett University), Mathieu Copeland (Leeds Beckett University)
Print Matters
A triple book launch will feature Inscription: The Journal of Material Text—Theory, Practice, History, issue 4 on “Touch,” Imposed Alphabet, a project that consists of letters concealed on imposed printing sheets from various jobs designed by Fraser Muggeridge studio from 2018 to 2023 and Robert Barry: The Defining of It, the first monograph devoted to this artist. Fraser Muggeridge will also be talking about SPINORAMA, an exhibition dedicated to book spines, featuring over 100 spines from different genres of books: from children’s, graphic design to art books.
FOCUS: AFRO-FEMINIST AND QUEER VOICES
Where Our Freedom Begins: Afro-Feminist Mo(ve)ments in Germany provides a space to revisit constellations, gatherings and legacies of black feminist communities and its impact on our present at the intersections of visual art, literature, activism and education. With panel talks, music performances, film screenings and workshops, MISS READ builds these connections assembling diverse genealogies of black feminist queer experiences and continues the shared exploration into Decolonizing Art Book Fairs
18:00 – 19:30 * FOCUS Marianne Ballé Moudoumbou, Yezenia León Mezu, Jennifer Kamau, moderated by Anguezomo Nzé Mba Bikoro
To The Furthest Edge Where Our Freedom Begins: Afro-Feminist Collective Struggles
Movements mark the stories of communities coming together and those rupturing to an end. Solidarity work comes with radicality, loss, grief and the practice of conflict and repair to create spaces of safety, legal change and forms of transformational justice. In the re-telling of our own narratives we look back and forwards to the movements and moments of ritual, retreat and revolt through literature and intimate gatherings that provided the imagination through transglobal connections from the black women of the Black Panther Party, Combahee River Collective, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Riverwood (KEN) to ADEFRA. It is in our differences and our connections that we march common and uncommon struggles to re-define our experience of freedom as a healing journey.
20:00 – 20:30 * FOCUS Savanna Morgan
Performance
Savanna Morgan is a Neo-folklorist, musician, poet, and performer from East Texas. Savanna’s recent research and music practice invokes the blues, a centuries-old Afro-diasporic form of poetic storytelling, as a carrier of joys, sorrows, and knowledge—understanding music and rhythm as the only containers big enough to hold the vast complexity of Black histories. Her work aims to foster conversations within the Black diaspora centering on its histories, triumphs, joy, and healing. Her anti-disciplinary lecture, Transbluesencies: a poetic you can see through, is an invitation to explore the intersections of blues lyricism and black feminism, as well as black linguistic folk traditions that question written texts/printed matter as a core modality of poetic expressions.
20:30 – 21:30 * FOCUS House of Living Colors
Performance
House of Living Colors (HOLC) is an open drag and performance collective particularly for queer and trans black and people of color (QTBiPOC) to explore gender performance. The house was created after several members in the house experienced poor treatment or exclusion from venues or organizations within the mainstream queer community in Berlin. The collective is made up of people from various backgrounds, many of whom come from countries where it is politically dangerous to be openly LGBTQ+ and/or could face imprisonment or death for aligning themselves with such identity and sexual orientation. Therefore, the collective situates itself in an intersectional ideology and practice. Our aim is to curate spaces for people of marginalized identities to access the experiences of joy, liberation, happiness and acceptance.
MISS READ’s 2024 focus on Afro-feminist and queer voices is curated by Anguezomo Nzé Mba Bikoro and Pascale Obolo. MISS READ’s Conceptual Poetics Day 2024 is curated by Michalis Pichler.