FORMS OF KINSHIP — RADICAL DREAMING
15 / 16 May 2022
FORMS OF KINSHIP — RADICAL DREAMING
A workshop with Georgy Mamedov
Sun 15 May 2022, 2—7 p.m. Uhr
The event takes place off-site. Capacity is limited. To register and to receive details about the location please send an email to info@temporarygallery.org
Language: English
For many people sleep is an escape strategy in stressful situations. We want to fall asleep in the hope that after awakening the stressful condition is gone. Sleeping is a transitory state, a refuge from the pressing and devastating reality. In dreams complex, otherwise unexperienced worlds and feelings never experienced before appear. Dreams have a power to frighten and distress but also to heal and liberate. Dreaming is an utterly personal, even intimate experience, very often too embarrassing to share with others.
Yet, this is what I want to do – to invite friends and strangers into my dream; to let everyone explore and settle in the dreamworld I’ve once visited myself. It is a world in which people have a chance to live eternally, but if and when they decide to die, they turn into human-made objects. What object would you want to become after death? What does death mean anyway? What happens to kinship, love and belonging in a world where the ontological difference between the human and non-human becomes arbitrary? We will collectively dive into these questions and try to come up with some answers, which potentially bring some light and hope to our present gloomy and scary world.
Disclaimer: no hypnosis, meditation or substance intake will take place during the workshop.
FORMS OF KINSHIP — THE POWER OF DREAMS
A reading and conversation with Georgy Mamedov
Mon 16 May 2022, 5—7 p.m.
The event takes place at Temporary Gallery CCA and can be followed via ZOOM.
To follow online, please register via the link below. After registration you’ll receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIude6prjgrE9znTt70IwKsgeWJQATAHKcN
Language: English
In dreams mundanity, fantasy, individual fears and collective desires are often tied up in the strangest ways. Can we potentially use the power of these odd juxtapositions for radical (re)imagination of the world we live in? Audre Lorde starts her “Notes from a Trip to Russia” (1976) with a recollection of an erotic dream during her visit to Moscow. Georgy Mamedov will read this short fragment as an invitation to a conversation about the power of dreams as vehicles of radical imagination. Let’s share dreams and see where it gets us!
Georgy Mamedov is a curator, writer and activist based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. History and the practice of radical imagination is one of the central themes of his artistic practice and research work. Georgy co-authored and co-edited several publications including the pioneering Russian language collection of feminist and queer science fiction, Utterly Other (Bishkek, 2018); Queer Communism is Ethics (Moscow, 2016); and Bishkek Utopian (Bishkek, 2015). His most recent artistic projects include the experimental montage TikTok: A Blue Blouse Edit (2020); a collaboration with Werker Collective on the project, A Gestural History of the Young Worker (2019); and the lecture-performance, Delirious Blues: A Philosophy Letter from the Low Life during the Parliament of Bodies at the Bergen Assembly (2019). As a day job Georgy teaches history and theory of modern and contemporary art at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek.
The event is part of Temporary Gallery’s study group Forms of Kinship. The series of gatherings aims to think collectively about the way we form relations in and with the world, outside of the nuclear family structure. The meetings take place monthly, in person or online. Each session is led by an invited guest, including artists, thinkers, poets, activists and others. The study group is convened by Aneta Rostkowska (CCA Temporary Gallery) and Kris Dittel (independent curator, Mediakunst fellow NRW).
Image
Konrad Klapheck. The Superman (Der Supermann), 1962. Ludwig Museum
Funding and support
Temporary Gallery erhält strukturelle Unterstützung durch das Kulturamt der Stadt Köln und die Deltax contemporary, Wirtschafts- und Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH. Kris Dittel ist 2021/2022 Medienkunstfellow NRW.
The participation of Ukrainian artists and activists in both events has been made possible thanks to the funding of Fonds Soziokultur for Art Initiatives Cologne (AIC).
The event is part of a larger endeavor called "Islands of Kinship: A Collective Manual for Sustainable and Inclusive Art Institutions”, in which CCA Temporary Gallery works with six international partner institutions: Jindrich Chalupecky Society (Prague), Latvian Center for Contemporary Art (Riga), Frame Contemporary Art Finland (Helsinki), Julius Koller Society (Bratislava), Faculty of things that can't be learned (Skopje) and Stroom den Haag (The Hague). Islands of Kinship is co-funded by the EU Program Creative Europe.
