Gestures & Nods #1: A Seminar on Cuir (Queer) Approaches
to Knowledge Sharing Through Performance
November 25th - 26th, 2022
Graphics: Michael Miller
Encouraged by cuir/queer methodologies, the seminar investigates ways of cuiring (queering) knowledge production within art institutions through the collective experience of performance by and with invited artists and collectives who reflect around these notions. The seminar brings a cuir approach to the forefront, proposing a kaleidoscopic understanding of queerness from different points of view.
Inspired by Minna Salami’s reflections on the notion of sensuous knowledge, the seminar centred artistic practices as discursive elements in their own right. The gathering searched for alternate means to position narratives and ways of sharing knowledge, circumventing rigid academic models and challenging Europatriarchal knowledge structures.
This edition was a collaboration between Itzel Esquivel, the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and Bergen Kunsthall.
About the contributors
Malin Arnell and Mar Fjell, who join together to become an interdisciplinary art worker, explored conditions for participatory practices in territorial environments by emphasizing the sticky shivers of (self-) touching through vibrating togetherness.
The transdisciplinary group La Pocha Nostra, joined by performers La Saula, Balitronica Gómez, and Gerardo Juárez, and Pocha guest artists Muza de la Luz and Cecilio Orozco are known for practicing an intense collaboration across national borders, race, gender, and generations as an act of radical citizen diplomacy and as a means for creating ephemeral communities of rebel artists.
Writer, poet and social activist Mabell Holand held a poetry intervention on the topics of intersectionality, trans identity, and violence of trans bodies.
Elina Waage Mikalsen explores themes of identity and exclusion, collecting stories, fragments and sounds to work around the holes in Sámi history, caused by the Norwegian assimilation process. Mikalsen hosted an off-site sonic session in Jiennagoáhti (Lyttegammen) – et kunstverk dedikert til lytting i Bergensfjellet, an art in public space project initiated by Elin Már Øyen Vister in dialogue with Bergen Samiid Searvii and Joar Nango dedicated to listening. Jiennagoáhti is co-produced by Lydgalleriet, Bergen City Council and Byfjellsforvalteren and supported by KORO, Arts Council Norway and Bergen City Council. The goáhti is constructed by Ole Muosát /Sámihouse. Jiennagoáhti will have it's official opening in February 2023.
…and on Saturday, the programme ended at Landmark with a queer multi-disciplinary event curated by Kaeto Sweeney with special guests Safia Bahmed-Schwartz, DJ Amina Oui, and Dj Julie Silset.
photos: Michael Miller