Can an exhibition be like a Coven, curated on the basis of autonomy, sharing knowledge and radical care?
The idea of the exhibition as coven, stems from our need to initiate a conversation within the personal and political experiences of the present, raising the question of the relationship between intersectional feminism and curatorial practice. For this, as curators, we wish to create the setting for the coexistence of multiple voices and identities, and to highlight the collective relationships in the conformation of our present quests. Witchcraft is approached in a twofold way: on one hand, it operates as an archetype of empowerment and point of reference for the feminist struggles, since it underlines the historical evolution of capitalism, colonization and patriarchy (Federici). On the other hand, it acts out as a metaphor for the gender and class aspects that characterize artistic production, in a way that it plays a key role in the decisions regarding the exhibition’s realization and the question of its autonomy. At the center of the artists’ interest are emotions and embodied experiences coming from systems of oppression. Their framework is transnational, whilst memories and imaginaries of collective action emerge, as well as possibilities of healing in micro-worlds open to change.
Coven was born in January 2020 through discussions about how to come close, exchange healing and supportive practices and make space for each other in new ways of conviviality within an art exhibition context. Both, the first and the second, lockdowns forced us to postpone the show. This in turn made us redefine an idea, which at its core, is about proximity in a physical space. We decided to turn Coven into a journey from the online to the offline world and create a community of care beyond the limits of physical space through a series of workshops, conversations and reading groups that will eventually lead – covid permitting – to the exhibit’s realization at the hospitable space of Feminist Autonomous Centre for Research.
“The more you share, the less you need”, Larry Mitchell wrote in his queer-feminist tale, The Faggots and Their Friends between Revolutions, about a rebellious utopia.
Thus, with the embracement of a feminist perspective outside the competitive environment of the dominant profit and non-profit cultural institutions, Coven as a concept wishes to embody the “love politics” it dreams of.
Curated by: Vassilia Kaga & Caterina Stamou
Vassilia Kaga is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020 in curating
Participating artists: Margarita Athanasiou, Khaleb Brooks, Rabab El Mouaden, Marie-Andrée Godin, Eliza Goroya, Graham Kolbeins,
Vassiliki Lazaridou, Rory Midhani, Sotiris Batzianas, Sofia Rozaki, Myrto Stampoulou, Dorian Wood.
Marie-Andrée Godin
Coven/Care – WWW³ (WORLD WIDE WEB /
WILD WO.MEN WITCHES /
WORLD WITHOUT WORK)
Coven/Care – WWW³ (WORLD WIDE WEB / WILD WO.MEN WITCHES / WORLD WITHOUT WORK) is a collective online gathering to remember (or if not, invent) and activate our faculties of care. We are going to share words and lived experiences through collective reading, grounding exercises and (their/her/his) story telling, with the intent of developing a safer spaced caring practice.
Marie-Andrée Godin was born in Canada and works between Canada and Finland, where she now lives. Her research has focused on the figure of the witch as a feminist figure and explores the concepts of a-hierarchy, craft, holistic and anti-anthropocentric thinking and knowledge as a source of potential power or oppression. She is now trying to see how magic, post-capitalism and diverse political forms or systems can be intertwined to help manifest the future. She conducts this research under the title WWW³ (WORLD WIDE WEB / WILD WO.MEN WITCHES / WORLD WITHOUT WORK) more thoroughly as a doctoral candidate at Aalto University (Finland) since 2018. This research is also supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her artistic work is mainly based in the fields of installation, performance art and socially engaged practices, and has been shown so far in Canada, the United States, Japan, Finland and Italy.
WHEN: 28.11.2020 at 18.00 Athens / 17.00 Berlin
WHERE: Online
DURATION: 2 h
LANGUAGE: English
The number of participants is limited to 15 in order to encourage comfortableness and equal space for expression among the individuals.
Please send us an e-mail with subject “Coven/Care” and your name at [email protected] to receive an invitation link for the event.