Close[t] Demonstrations: Eine Ausstellung über die Vielfältigkeit queerer Un_Sichtbarkeit

An art exhibition exploring queer visibilities and invisibilities through drawings, comics, installations, videos, embroidery, and zines. The artworks selected unearth power dynamics, pleasures, and desires involved in queer in_visibilities, and the diverse ways they manifest in different contexts. The organizers of Close[t] Demonstrations chose a title that playfully introduces and signals elements of transparency, publicness, opacity, invisibility and visibility and their liminalities. Closets and the communities they hold, being public and demonstrating for equality, even monsters, are all contained by the title.

The exhibition showcases artworks by 18 artists from Київ, Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg, Helsinki, Athens, Erzurum, Dhaka, Dnipro, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Oaxaca, Almaty and London. The Close[t] Demonstrations exhibition space and catalogue  are in some combination of Arabic, Austrian sign language, Bangla, Bashkir, Belarusian, Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Cypriot Turkish, East Frisian, English, Fante, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, IsiXhosa, Kurdish, Nahuatl, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tatar, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

The exhibition program includes guided tours in German with interpreting into Austrian sign language, English, Ukrainian, Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian and Russian. Moreover, the visitors can participate in performances by Pêdra Costa, a workshop on creative writing through multiple discriminations with Masha Beketova and Syrine Boukadida, a lecture on the relationship between visual and political representation by Elahe Haschemi Yekani and discussions on the conditions of (im)possibility for art creation with Syaivo and Lesia Pahulich and on the optics of queer migration with Tegiye Birey, Ewa Maczynska, Têkoşîn and Afro Rainbow Austria. The full program and schedule is available on the exhibition webpage.

Opening hours:

Thursday – Sunday 12:00 – 16:00
Wednesdays: 16.00 – 20:00

Special events:

3 November, Friday: Vernissage 18:00 – 22:00 (dry event)

18:30 – Welcome words by organizers

19:00 – Performance by Pêdra Costa

 

4 November, Saturday: 

12:00 – 16.00 Opening hours

16:30 – 19:00 A dialogue without a common language. Creative writing workshop with Masha Beketova and Syrine Boukadida (Eng; Ger; Arab; Fr; Ukr; Ru) Register here 

Being queer, migrant, PoC,… are all identities that make us at the same time very visible and very invisible in the societies we live in. We might not share the same experiences but do we share that moment of being misunderstood? Don’t we start to mumble the moment we have to express ourselves in a new language? Don’t we get asked in what language we dream? Don’t we get frustrated when our body language, our gestures and facial expression become an obstacle? Aren’t we asked to not overwhelm others with our emotions and to pick one identity at a time? How many times were you told that you are too much? We are neither going to provide answers nor solutions to these questions, we are also here to question. We are working towards providing a space where we can be ourselves, all of it at once. Where grammar is so old school and where norms are out of the room. We want to create a dialogue between two people, many people, thoughts, ideas, images, objects, nature, and creatures. Such dialogue doesn’t necessarily need a common language. Writing is full of contradictions. It can be a state of vulnerability and power at the same time. It implies such an openness that is hard to find in other experiences. Writing can be a liberating and empowering process, if not approached from a convenient perspective of “getting it right”. In our previous writing groups, we invited people, who shared various languages, multiple identifications, and migration histories, and often ended up sitting with a bunch of people who seemed to share some experiences but have often written in dialects and language variations inaccessible for each other. It was never a problem. The moment we started talking about writing, we just connected. In this workshop, we will collectively draw on our shared experiences of multiple estrangements in various contexts. We will first look at how creative expression can be blocked through multiple discriminations. “Who will ever read and understand me?” “Where can I ever show my texts without commodifying my marginalized positionality?” “How can I address my various experiences in a safe way while communities are so small?” “Can I still be creative while crisis and war is ongoing and omnipresent?” These questions will be considered and countered creatively in group work.

Masha Beketova is a writer and culture researcher interested in queer diasporas, drinking tea, untranslatabilities and observing rain. Masha was born in Kharkiv and lives in Germany since 2004.

Syrine Boukadida is a psychologist and project manager. She lives between Tunis and Berlin. She works for the Lesbenberatung/LesMigraS Berlin and manages the LGBTIQ+ asylum project at Mawjoudin (We exist). She also facilitates workshops on topics related to migration,asylum, BIPoC empowerment and multiple discriminations.

19:00 – 21:00 Performance by Pêdra Costa  

 

5 November, Sunday: 

12:00 – 16.00 Opening hours

12:00 – 14:00 Guided tour in Ukrainian with Liubov Samoylovich Registrer here

14:00 – 16:00 Guided tour in Turkish with Tegiye Birey Register here

 

10 November, Friday: 

12:00 – 16.00 Opening hours

Note: between 16:00 and 17:00 we will be transforming the space, not all features of the exhibition will be available, but the visitors are welcome to stay inside and explore the ones that are.

17:00 – 19:00 Lecture “The Ends of Visibility” by Elahe Haschemi Yekani Register here

This talk problematises the relationship between visual and political representation which is closely related to the ocularcentrism of Western modernity.

Elahe Haschemi Yekani is Professor of English and American Literature and Culture with a Focus on Postcolonial Studies at the Department of English and American Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Previously she was Junior Professor of English Literature at the University of Flensburg. Following her PhD at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, research stays and positions took her to New York University (USA), the University of Potsdam, the University of Innsbruck (Austria) as well as to the Institute for Advanced Study Konstanz. Her research interests include the Anglophone novel from its beginnings to now, Black Atlantic and Diasporic Writing, Postcolonial Studies, Visual Culture, Cultural Memory and the Archival Turn, Queer Theory and Intersectionality.In addition to numerous articles and two monographs, Familial Feeling: Entangled Tonalities in Early Black Atlantic Writing and the Rise of the British Novel (Palgrave Macmillan 2021, open access) and The Privilege of Crisis. Narratives of Masculinities in Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, Photography and Film (Campus 2011, won the Britcult Award 2009), she has just completed a third book on Revisualising Intersectionality (Palgrave Macmillan 2022, open access) co-written with Magdalena Nowicka and Tiara Roxanne. This publication marks the conclusion of the research project of the same name funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and led by Prof. Haschemi Yekani and Prof. Nowicka (Deutsches Zentrum für Integrations- und Migrationsforschung DeZIM). In addition, together with Prof. Silvy Chakkalakal (HU, European Ethnology) she is the PI of the Princeton-HU Strategic Partnership Grant project “Re-Imagining the Archive: Sexual Politics and Postcolonial Entanglements”. She has just been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for a new project on “Tales of the Diasporic Ordinary. Aesthetics, Affects, Archives”. More information: hu.berlin/haschemi-yekani

 

11 November, Saturday: 

12:00 – 16.00 Opening hours

12:00 – 14:00 Guided tour in Russian with Iain Zabolotny Register here

15:00 – 16:00 “The Magic Closet and the Dream Machine” arts-based research project presentation by Katharina Wiedlack, Masha Godovannaya, Ruthia Jenrbekova and Iain Zabolotny Register here

In a quiet location inside the exhibition space, shielded from the daylight and a bit secluded are “the Magic Closet and the Dream Machine.” This “Magic Closet” is a space, where visitors can experience first-hand parts of the arts-based methodology we call the Dream Machine; It utilizes a modified version of Brion Gysin’s do-it-yourself stroboscopic flicker device to bring traces of queer resistance and existence to the surface. Within the space, visitors can further enter yet another Magic Closet: the digital archive of previously recorded traces of queer post-Soviet knowledge and resilience that appear in a multitude of texts, videos, graphic and photographic work. These artful traces are the results of the arts-based research project “The Magic Closet and the Dream Machine: Post-Soviet Queerness, Archiving, and the Art of Resistance.” Most of these artistic testimonies were produced by the participants of the Dream Machine workshops in different cities in the global Northeast and Southeast; They are commented by and interwoven with articles, videos and commentaries of the project team on the project’s methodology and the experiences we had during its implementation.

 

12 November, Sunday: 

12:00 – 16.00 Opening hours

12:00 – 14:00 Guided tour in English with the curator Anna T. Register here

14:00 – 16:00 Guided Tour in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Montenegrin Register here

 

18 November, Saturday: 

12:00 – 16.00 Opening hours

16:00 – 18:00 Discussion “Art and its conditions of (im)possibility. A queer conversation” with Olenka Syaivo Dmytryk. Full list of speakers to be announced. Moderated by Lesia Pagulich Register here

This combination of a mini-lecture and a discussion by Ukranian scholars, artists, and activists invites everyone to a conversation about the conditions of (im)possibility for art creation: from material conditions of cultural production to geopolitical conditions influencing gender and sexual dissent. The war against Ukraine aggravated by global health and political crises creates new challenges and vulnerabilities for transgender and queer artists. What are the conditions of art production and ‘queer visibility’ in these circumstances? What can art offer for contemporary urgencies and practices of resistance? Participants will talk about wartime Ukraine, cherishing queer voices and reflecting upon the conditions of possibility for artistic transnational solidarity against imperial violence and a multitude of oppressions. This event is for a broad audience, anyone interested in questions of art and queer voices, as well as experiences of war and its influence on cultural production. While the event foregrounds the experiences of transgender and queer people, the intended audience is not limited to LGBTQ communities. We envision this event as an invitation for a broad public conversation about the importance of queer voices and art in resistance against imperial violence and a multitude of oppressions.

Olenka Syaivo Dmytryk is a librarian and researcher from Ukraine currently based in the UK. They have broad research interests from gender and sexuality theories and social movements studies to art histories of Eastern Europe. Syaivo is a PhD graduand in Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge and holds MA degrees in Gender Studies and Cultural Studies. They volunteer supporting refugees and organise cultural events and protests in their free time.

 

19 November, Sunday: 

12:00 – 16.00 Opening hours

12:00 – 14:00 Guided tour in German with Markus Firnkranz and Mette Freidel with Austrian Sign language interpreting by Theresa Kober Register here

16:00 – 19:00 Discussion “Optics of Queer Migration” with Ewa Maczynska, Tegiye Birey and Henrie Dennis Register here

What does the adjective “queer” do to the noun “migration”? With the discussion Optics of Queer Migration, we are interested in exploring what the figure of the queer migrant provides, hits and misses for those who claim it as an identity, and how it directs everyday encounters, border regimes as well as activism, art, and research. We are interested in canvassing the ways in which race and class shape the politics of queer migration in and out of sight. With this invitation, we propose to engage in an exercise of collective reflexivity on the kaleidoscopic politics of queer migration.

Ewa Maczynska has a PhD in International Relations from Central European University and is currently working as a visual artist. In her PhD dissertation she studied subjectivity formation of contemporary progressive, equality, and justice oriented European activists who came in solidarity with migrants in Denmark, Hungary, and Sweden. She argued that activists subjectivity disclosed a series of tension and contradictions, particularly in regards to activists critique of neoliberal capitalism and their embeddedness in and reproduction of neoliberal discourses, which in turn marked the limitations of contemporary European justice oriented politics.

Henrie Dennis is a Nigerian lesbian activist, art curator, and cultural mediator and the founder of Afro Rainbow Austria. Her work centers on themes of queerness, migration, gender, anti-racism, and decolonization. A dedicated advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and representation, she leverages her platform to amplify marginalized voices and build bridges between diverse communities. Through the medium of art and dialogue, she challenges societal norms and promotes understanding and inclusivity.

Tegiye Birey is a text worker and community-enthusiast from the Mediterranean. She is a PhD Candidate in Gender Studies at Central European University and Utrecht University, and her research performs a postcolonial/decolonial feminist reading of migration solidarity. Tegiye has a BA in Women’s Studies and Political Science with a minor in French Studies from the University of New Hampshire, and a MSc in Gender and Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has worked in the field of refugee rights, engaged in gender, history and youth research and training, and taken part in feminist, queer, anti-militarist, and anti-racist networks transnationally.

 

 24 November, Friday: 

12:00 – 21:00 Opening hours

18:00 – 21:00 Finissage