Creative Writing Workshop
Chop Chop! Poetry is not a Luxury - Poetry is Contamination
Sofia Bempeza @Beursschouwburg
AFTER REASON - Productive Undoing Is a Difficult Task invites artists and thinkers to explore the paradox legacy of European Enlightenment ideals. Join a collective experimental writing session, hosted by She-Dandy Sofia Bempeza!
Chop Chop! Poetry is not a Luxury - Poetry is Contamination
What is the color of your memories right now? Imagine typing on a black page on the screen, starting from the sea´s abyss that is not nothing. The page could have been white and empty but nothing whatsoever can be empty or universal (all-embracing) as we pass from one era to another, as we trace one history after the other. My page is blue, as transparent as the Aegean waters around Lesvos, as dark as the oceanic waves.
The workshop is inspired by Audre Lorde´s viewpoint: rather than being a luxury, poetry is “a vital necessity” that gives life and voice to what is unnamed and as yet unthought, and thus overcomes the forces in society that silence (black) women’s experiences. Poetry is a tool for contaminating dominant language(s) and a path for anticipating our dreams and desires. We will practice poetry as a way for telling im/possible stories, weaving memories and relating to each other. No poetry or linguistic background is needed – we* do trust the interconnections between our earthly surroundings and polyphonic histories, and the relations to human and non-human friends, our beloved ones, the places in which life, work, movement, struggles etc. happens.
Prof. Dr. Sofia Bempeza
...... is an artist, poet (she-dandy) and art and cultural scientist. She* writes, organises, performs and works on dissent and artistic/aesthetic practices, subversion and reactionary cultures, institutional critique and queer feminism. She* is Professor for Art and Communication Practices at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her* theoretical research concerns the history of art strike(s); collectivities and polyphonic aesthetics; cultural strategies of the (New) Right and anti-gender narratives. She is co-founder of the Hidden School (Aegean Sea region GR/TR), and founder/co-curator of the queer-feminist festival Aphrodite* in Athens (2018–2020). She has been a board member of Shedhalle Zürich (2014–2018). Sofia is also co-editor of Polyphone Ästhetik. Eine Kritische Situierung (2019), a collection of essays that critically engages with and productively unsettles Western aesthetics.
Details
Beursschouwburg
A. Ortsstraat 20-28
1000 Brüssel
Language: English
Price: free
marlena.von.wedel@goethe.de
Part of series AFTER REASON