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Body Hegemonies 2017:

an Experimental Transfer

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In BODY HEGEMONIES 2017: AN EXPERIMENTAL TRANSFER six artists and scientists set out to explore further and make transparent some of the themes of epistemic violence and hegemonic orders, that have resulted from the legacy of colonialism and slavery, as the hidden, ambivalent, broken flip side of modernity and enlightenment. Our aim was to examine the Euro-centric logic of dehumanization and processes of exclusion from the perspective of bodies and their embeddedness within these hegemonic structures.
We asked ourselves the following preliminary questions: “What are the bodily traces of the history of modernity”? “How are history and memory inscribed in which bodies or body structures”? “What were/are some of the possible strategies of negation and resistance for these historically inscribed bodies (or body parts – human remains) in the past and the present”? Thus, the project sets its focus on aspects of bodies that have been/are being excluded or made invisible within contemporary and historical discourses. “Body Hegemonies” works on the transdisciplinary interface (entanglement) of theorists, performers and everyday practitioners (experts), in an attempt, to make possible other forms of knowing and knowledge production.

Link to the Video

​​​​Concept: Monica van der Haagen-Wulff and Fabian Chyle

Video Production: Matthias Meurer

 

Participants:                                                                                       Skype Partners

Monica van der Haagen-Wulff (Germany)                                         Paschal Daantos Berry (Indonesia)

Fabian Chyle (Germany)                                                                    Kris Larsen (USA)

Michael Lazar (Israel)                                                                        Sari Khoury (Palestine)

Ciraj Rassool (South Africa)                                                               Dierk Schmidt (Germany)

Arahmaiani Feisal (Indonesia)                                                           Gunnar Stange (Germany)

Kelvin Burkard (Germany)                                                                 Lea Gulditte Hestelund (Denmark)

The results of the material developed in the laboratory were presented to the public at the University of cologne. This public-showings was flanked by a mini-symposium around the topic of body hegemonies. The aim of the symposium was to couch the results of the artistic research within a larger discursive context. Two papers were presented in the framework of the symposium:


Paper 1. “Regular Visits to Purdah Baag: Creating the Modern Body in Early Twentieth Century India”.​

Prof. Dr. Devleena Ghosh, teaches at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. She has published widely in the fields of postcolonial, environmental and gender studies. View Dr. Ghosh's lecture here.

Paper 2. “The Paradox of Hegemonic Vulnerability in Reproductive Narratives”

Dr. Jules Sturm is an independent researcher based in Amsterdam and teaches at the Art Academy the “Sandberg Instituut” on critical theories of the body. Her background is in philosophy and gender studies, literary and cultural analysis. View Dr. Strum's lecture here.

Link to the Body Hegemonies website

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