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 (Participation is free, seats are limited)
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UPCOMING ENCOUNTERS
each Sat, 15-19.30h
14. December 2024
Timeliness: Fragments Between Past and Future (EN)
With Ghayath Almadhoun, Katharina Ludwig, Mykola Ridnyi
Co-hosted by Anna-Lena Werner & Katharina Ludwig
For the fifth encounter of the discursive series On(going) Trauma at Vierte Welt Berlin guests and audience present are invited to collectively address questions regarding trauma’s complex effects on temporality and how these are being explored, transformed or conveyed in artistic (and research) practices. Together, we will be focusing on the repetitive and sudden presence (– the timeliness –) of traumata between past experiences and possible future scenarios, on non-linear fragmentation of individual and collective memories, and on its transgenerational traces inscribed throughout personal histories. Trauma will be discussed as holes and portals for temporalities and voices, as un-healing wounds in poetry, texts, and language as such (Katharina Ludwig), as vocal echos of past violences shifting in time within the streets of Ukraine’s city Kharkiv (Mykola Ridnyi) and as a poetic excavation of identity, displacement and the collective scars of conflict, exploring how trauma reshapes language, with poetry bearing witness to the unspeakable effects of ongoing crises (Ghayath Almadhoun).
Biographies
Ghayath Almadhoun is a Palestinian poet born in Damascus in 1979 and moved to Sweden in 2008. Almadhoun has published five volumes of poetry in Arabic, the latest being "I Brought You a Severed Hand" in 2024, and his poetry has been translated into nearly 30 languages. He has created several poetry films, collaborated extensively with artists and scholars, and curated numerous events, readings, and literary anthologies. In February 2025, his new book "I Have Brought You a Severed Hand" will be published in the U.S. in English translation by Action Books and in Germany in German translation "Ich habe Dir eine abgetrennte Hand mitgebracht" by Karl Rauch Verlag. Almadhoun currently divides his time between Berlin and Stockholm.
Katharina Ludwig is a writer, researcher, artist, and sometimes poet based in Berlin and London. Her/their work is concerned with narrative holes and the insurrectionary poetics of the 'wounded text'. Katharina’s work has been published, shown, performed, and read internationally, by a.o. 3am Magazine, Zeno Press, Tripwire Journal, Strings Magazine, antiphony journal, Ma Bibliothèque and Nightboat Books (forthcoming). Her/their book ‘The Hole: An Insurrectionary Poetics’ will be published next year through a collaboration between Ma Bibliothèque and Cutt Press. In addition to her/their own practice Katharina works on editorial, curatorial, and educational projects and is the co-editor of Vortext, a poetry mail subscription magazine.
Mykola Ridnyi is an artist and curator born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Currently he lives and works in Berlin where he holds a guest professorship for multimedia art at Berlin University of the Arts. Ridnyi works across media ranging from collective actions in public space, film, photography, to site-specific installations. In recent works he experiments with nonlinear montage and the collage of documentary and fiction, drawing on the contrast between fragility and resilience of individual stories and collective histories. Ridnyi co-founded SOSka group, an art collective, and SOSka gallery-lab, an artist-run-space in Kharkiv. Since realising his curatorial project Armed and Dangerous (2017 – 2021), Ridnyi developed a platform for collaboration between Ukrainian moving image artists and filmmakers. Since 2022 he curated several screening programs of Ukrainian film and video art in DAAD gallery in Berlin, MAXXI Rome, Museum Folkwang Essen, National Gallery in Sofia, amongst others.
Next Encounter
25. January
2025
Schwellen: Private Räume und Öffentliche Diskurse (DE)
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TEAM & GUESTS
With (tbc) Anujah Fernando, Alper Turan, Dominique Haensell, Ghayath Almadhoun, Hai Anh Trieu, Jenny Mahla, Isaac Chong Wai, İz Öztat, Katharina Ludwig, Lada Nakonechna, Lene Albrecht, Lela Ahmadzai, Luce deLire, Mine Pleasure Bouvar, Minh Duc Pham, Mykola Ridnyi, Natis, Olexii Kuchanskyi, Omer Fast, Rabih Mroué, Shira Wachsmann
Concept & Curation Anna Lena Werner, Elisa Müller (Institut für Widerstand im Postfordismus)
Co-Curators (tbc) Mykola Ridnyi, Hai Anh Trieu, Alper Turan, Katharina Ludwig
Project Assistance Ariadna Blanch López, Sebastian Eis
Awareness Mine Pleasure Bouvar
Design Lea Kontak
Press Nora Gores
Location Vierte Welt, Berlin
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds
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PAST ENCOUNTERS
25. May
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. -> viertewelt.de/programm/images-and-counter-images
With Lada Nakonechna, Lela Ahmadzai, Olexii Kuchanskyi, Omer Fast.
Hosted and curated by Anna-Lena Werner & Mykola Ridnyi Awareness Mine Pleasure Bouvar
Screenings by Lela Ahmadzai "Silent Night" (2013), Sashko Protyah “My Favourite Job” (2022), Omer Fast
22. June
Backlashes: Erhöhte rechte Alltagspräsenz (DE)
Im Juni entsteht in der gemeinsamen Arbeit mit Hai Anh Trieu ein Austauschformat als Reaktion auf den Anstieg rechter Alltagspräsenz, politischer Macht und Gewalt. Hai Anh Trieu und Elisa Müller laden dazu verschiedene Künstler*innnen und Aktivist*innen ein, um über ihre Wahrnehmung der Situation zu sprechen und mit uns zu teilen, wie das ihre Praxis beeinflußt. Welche Ressourcen stehen oder stehen uns gerade nicht zur Verfügung – in einer Zeit in der überall, auch in der Kunst- und Kulturförderung, die finanziellen Mittel gekürzt werden? Wie kann eine fruchtbare Allyschaft unter den verschiedenen Communities aussehen? Welche Aktionen planen wir und welche Zukunftsängste oder Hoffnungen hegen wir? Was liegt uns am Herzen? Wie können wir uns gegen Instrumentalisierungsbestrebungen zur Wehr setzen und uns gegenseitig beschützen? Wir wollen versuchen, solidarische Verbindungslinien zu ziehen. Dabei verstehen wir den Austausch und das Vernetzen selbst als widerständige Praxis.
Mit Anujah Fernando, Dominique Haensell, Luce deLire, Pham Minh Duc
Ko-kuratiert von Hai Anh Trieu und Elisa Müller / Awareness Mine Pleasure Bouvar
21. September
EMANCIPATIONS AND COLLECTIVE RESILIENCE: ON THE BODY AND TRAUMA
Storing experiences and knowledges, the body is a physical reminder of both visceral vulnerability and more-than-human (collective) resilience. It is being instrumentalised to continue hegemonic narratives, hierarchical systems and violence against groups. For the 3rd iteration of the discursive series "On(going) Trauma" at Vierte Welt Berlin, artists and the audience present are invited to share their strategies, engaging in the entanglements of the body, memory and trauma through their distinctive practices. Methods of dis-embodiment and dis-identification, fictional or ritualized bodies, as well as adaptions of different personas and collectivized selves will be critically discussed as possibilities to reclaim historical and political truths, rights, and narratives.
with Isaac Chong Wai, Iz Öztat, Jenny Mahla, Natis
Co-curated by Alper Turan and Anna-Lena Werner Awareness Mine Pleasure Bouvar
26. October
Narrative: Traumatische Zeugenschaft und Fiktionen (DE)
with Lene Albrecht, Shira Wachsmann, Hai Anh Trieu / curated and hosted by Elisa Müller
Screenings: Shira Wachsmann „The moment before,“ Hai Anh Trieu „I loved first”