Karmaklubb* at Kunstnernes Hus: “Art and public space: Queer in/visibility as activism” — Chapter 2 of 2

The second day of the symposium we follow up on queer perspectives on how to move, inhabit, and challenge — to ‘hack’ — various architectures and public spaces. With us today: Louis Schou-Hansen, Maike Statz, Exutoire (Paul-Antoine Lucas and Bùi Quý Son), Harald Beharie, Tominga O’Donnell, Koyote Millar, Jan Trinh, Mabell Holand, Cathrine Hasselberg / Memoar, and beautiful guests. Most likely surprises.

12:00

Doors open, host Mabell Holand

Part 1: Dangerous fictions

• Artist talk by dancer and choreographer Louis Schou-Hansen. Louis’ work lands somewhere between dance and visual arts. Its trans-disciplined practice encompasses formats such as performances, making dances, performing, writing, and sometimes curating. Louis’ work dives into speculative fiction as a tool to investigate, dissect, and denaturalize how bodies have been sculpted through violent Western fairytales. Here, utilizing counterfactual history in addition to queer and trans-feminist epistemologies to produce counter-narratives. Yes, please.

 

 

12:45

Part 2: Speculative thinking on queering architecture

• Maike Statz: ‘In/visibility in Space’

There is a tension between being seen and unseen in space: a brightly lit street at night can create both feelings of safety and exposure. Merging personal experience, examples from architecture, queer and feminist thinking and her own artistic work, Maike will present her thoughts around notions of visibility and invisibility in space and space making practices. From dining tables to dance floors, how are we both shaped by and shaping our environments? What are the visible and invisible power dynamics at play?Maike Statz is an Australian Bergen-based interior architect and artist interested in the relationship between bodies and space.

 

• The duo Exutoire (Paul-Antoine Lucas and Bùi Quý Sơn)

This presentation follows the journey of a queer critical spatial practice in the making. It narrates the story of two queer architects attempting to define a queer approach to research and practice. In this quest, encounters, discussions, collaborations, collective imagining and making are at the core of (re)constructing pathways for emancipation from normative ideals of spacemaking. This is a testimony to unfolding queer love stories and work partnerships, from Hanoi to Oslo.

13:30

Part 3: Meet dancer and choreographer Harald Beharie

 

• Harald is a Norwegian-Jamaican performer and choreographer based in Oslo, Norway.While applying various formats and contexts his practice looks into alternative modes of being, dancing, and existing together while questioning notions of normativity. Harald holds an interest for the unpolished, the DIY, and vulnerability of being in the unknowing.
  Some of the leading interests in his work at the moment are dissecting known physical narratives and opening for a conscious naivety and playfulness while indulging into practice of the pathetic, collapsing, joyful, failing, and persistent body. In 2023, Harald’s solo workBatty Bwoy (2022) won the Hedda Award (Heddaprisen) for the Best Dance Show.

Part 4: Dr Tominga O’Donnell: ‘Queer representation in the museum’

• Tominga O’Donnell is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at MUNCH, where they curated the programme Munchmuseet on the Move (2016–19), adopting a queer curatorial approach and commissioning a range of off-site art projects. At the new museum on Oslo’s waterfront, O’Donnell is the curator of solo exhibitions with Camille Henrot, Sandra Mujinga, Piya Wanthiang, Admir Batlak, and Constance Tenvik (2024); the inaugural MUNCH Triennale — ‘The machine is us’ — together with Stefano Collicelli Cagol; and a series of performance commissions in collaboration with Ingrid Moe, which include new works by Bendik Giske, Manuel Pelmuş, Camille Norment, and Brendan Fernandes. — Based on years of collaboration we promise this is not to be missed.

14:15:

Part 5: Panel: ‘Queer architectures; the rooms in which we maneuver’, with Louis Schou-Hansen, Mabell Holand, Maike Statz, Harald Beharie, Tominga O’Donnell (moderator) and special guests Koyote Millar and Jan Trinh

 

• Before we go for a glass, get to know one of the largest projects Karmaklubb* is involved in during 2024; Memoar and OSLOOVE, writing an alternative history of the City of Oslo. Presentation by Memoar’s Cathrine Hasselberg.

The symposium is in English and will be open for questions from everyone in the room. Times are approximate, we will keep it fluid and take breaks when needed. Changes and nice surprises may occur, please stay tuned for updates. For the 1st chapter, 10 January 2024, go here. Facebook link here. ID: No. *** 🎟️ FREE / First come, first served <3 Please show up early. HOT TIP: Nice to see the Boudry/Lorenz show, too.***

 

Produced in collaboration with Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo. Realised with generous support from the Fritt Ord Foundation.

*

Further reading:

Welcome to a two-day symposium focusing on feminist and queer visibility as a necessity not only to obtain freedom of speech and towards equality, but to exist. It is also touching upon the ambivalence associated with the fact of being identified as queer, as other — and how invisibility also can be an act and strategy of survival. At the same time, we go for a broader scope of queer, as in non-binary thinking and actions to change the established narratives, history, the way society is organized. Further on it will be giving space to where art overlaps with academia and activism, in particular thinking around (queer) bodies in various public spaces — they be virtual, in the history books, or in the street. More specific: Some of the people involved will question which bodies are seen and heard/represented in these public spaces; how our architectures are built and for whom; what is left out of our common narratives; how the body itself can be a tool for activist expressions (dance, performance, choreography). The participants are both local, national, and international — we’ve been working with most of them before, some for years. A backdrop for the symposium is also the exhibition by Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz — a duo working with queerness and (in)visibility for a substantial time — ‘Walk Silently in the Dark Until Your Feet Become Ears’, at display at Kunstnernes Hus throughout February. This event is part of a much conversational travel. Welcome to a double thought and pleasure session building on a series started at Kunstnernes Hus, fall 2018. Roll out the red carpet.