On(going) Trauma
Artistic narratives on collective and individual wounds
A discursive series in 6 parts, May-Dec 2024
How do artistic practices address current and past violence, wars and humanitarian crises? Which readings, which methods of communication and which future scenarios do they develop? How to talk about trauma when words fail; How to inform about violence without repeating violence?
In joint efforts with curators, guests and participants, the 6-part discursive series On(going) Trauma provides a forum to talk about and learn from artistic and curatorial research practices in dealing with trauma from plural perspectives. Various practices are presented, in which situated knowledges and backgrounds of systematic power and violence structures are discussed, as well as activist and marginalized perspectives are illuminated. In six rounds of encounters, discourses will be addressed that deal with the following issues: media representations and image politics of violence; the growth of right-wing everyday presence; trauma embedded in and seen through bodily perspectives; traumatic witnessing and fictional (counter-)narratives; private conflicts and public discourses; as well as aspects of the fragmentary and transgenerational temporality of trauma.
The focus of the encounters is directed to the question of how coexistence and discourse is possible despite different situatedness, concerns and involvement? What could be ways to overcome the difficulty of speaking about violence and to find new languages for communicating it?
The series of events seeks to critically examine and reposition the concept of trauma in the context of the arts, by focusing on the humanitarian and socio-political consequences of crises, war and violence. Central to each encounter is an exploration on whether and how the arts can create a potentially emancipating forum for the perspectives of victims and witnesses. In view of current crisis situations and the growing international shifts to the right, experiences of violence are corroding our societies, but at the same time, talking about these experiences from differentiated perspectives and finding lines of solidarity is difficult. "On(going) Trauma" therefore acts as an experimental format of exchange and encounter, created with and for artists, curators, activists, journalists and theorists. It is designed as an open conversation format, as a space of solidarity and humanitarian perspectives. At each event, excerpts from the artistic works of the invited guests are shown in the form of screenings, readings or performances.
On(going) Trauma is a discursive series in 6 parts, initiated by Institut für Widerstand im Postfordismus / Elisa Müller and Anna-Lena Werner in cooperation with Vierte Welt Berlin. Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
Register via karten@viertewelt.de (Participation is free, but seats are limited)
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UPCOMING ENCOUNTERS
each Sat, 15-19.30
22. June
Backlashes: Erhöhte rechte Alltagspräsenz (DE)
Backlashes: Growing right wing realities
with Luce deLire, Minh Duc Pham, Anujah Fernando, Dominique Haensell, curated and hosted by Hai Anh Trieu and Elisa Müller
21. September
Emancipations: On the Body and Trauma (EN)
Emanzipationen: Körperlichkeit und Trauma
with Iz Öztat (tbc) / curated and hosted by Alper Turan and Anna-Lena Werner
26. October
Narrative: Traumatische Zeugenschaft und Fiktionen (DE)
Narratives: Traumatic Witnessing and Fictions
with Shira Wachsmann, Hai Anh Trieu / curated and hosted by Elisa Müller, N.N.
Screenings: Shira Wachsmann „The moment before,“ Hai Anh Trieu „I loved first”
30. November
Schwellen: Private Räume und Öffentliche Diskurse (DE)
Thresholds: On Private Spaces and Public Discourses
14. December
Timeliness: Fragments Between Past and Future (EN)
Zeitlichkeit: Fragmente zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft
PAST ENCOUNTERS
25.05.2024 / 15-20.30 at Vierte Welt Berlin
Central to this first gathering of the discursive series On(going) Trauma (May-Dec 2024) are questions about representational limits and opportunities, image politics and selective framing processes of conveying war violence and traumatic events in mass media. What is at issue here is, on the one hand, the shift away from visual repetitions and reproductions of violence and, on the other hand, the creation of new methods and counter-images, as to communicate evidences of wars and conflicts. How can the atrocious images be made transparent, scrutinized, reframed? How can we learn the practice of looking at these images? Where are potentials for resistance, for visual dissent, for forming an opposition against the affects of shock and propagandistic visions? As part of this round – which has the open format of a colloquium – artists, researchers and all participants present, are invited and encouraged to discuss responses, challenges and new formats as to encounter media representations of war and trauma, the inherent power structures and the violence of images.
With Lada Nakonechna, Lela Ahmadzai, Olexii Kuchanskyi & Omer Fast.
Hosted and curated by Anna-Lena Werner & Mykola Ridnyi
Screenings by Lela Ahmadzai "Silent Night" (2013), Sashko Protyah “My Favourite Job” (2022), Mykola Ridnyi “Regular Places” (2022), Omer Fast
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TEAM & GUESTS
With (tbc) Anujah Fernando, Alper Turan, Dominique Haensell, Hai Anh Trieu, İz Öztat, Lada Nakonechna, Lela Ahmadzai, Luce deLire, Mine Pleasure Bouvar, Minh Duc Pham, Mykola Ridnyi, Olexii Kuchanskyi, Omer Fast, Rana Eweiss, Rabih Mroué, Shira Wachsmann, Yael Bartana, Zwoisy Mears-Clarke
Concept & Curation Anna Lena Werner, Elisa Müller (Institut für Widerstand im Postfordismus)
Co-Curators (tbc) Mykola Ridnyi, Hai Anh Trieu, Alper Turan
Project Assistance Ariadna Blanch López, Sebastian Eis
Awareness Mine Pleasure Bouvar
Design Lea Kontak
Press Nora Gores
Location Vierte Welt, Berlin
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds