The contribution towards expenses for each workshop is € 80. Each workshop is for a maximum of 15 participants. The workshop language is mainly English.
Lunch is provided for each workshop day as well as the Saturday of the conference. Travel and accommodation costs are extra.
A few spots are still available!
Information:
steirischer herbst / Barbara Thaler
p +43 664 24 500 76
f +43 316 823 007 77
academy@steirischerherbst.at
With Jochen Becker (DE), Daniel Kötter (DE) and international guests
With Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst (DE)
With Rolando Vazquez (NL/MX)
With Marjetica Potrč (DE/SI)
As part of the herbst academy 2016, steirischer herbst is once again running four new workshops – this year by Jochen Becker & Daniel Kötter, who with their research and art project “Chinafrika. Under Construction” analyze the cultural relations between China and the African continent, furthermore by Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, professor of African Studies, by the Mexican-Dutch sociologist Rolando Vazquez and by Marjetica Potrč, Slovenian artist and architect based in Ljubljana and Berlin.
Students and interested people from the fields of arts and theory are invited to investigate Europe’s current state from a postcolonial and decolonial perspective and to reflect on the artworks on show at the herbst festival. The four workshops take place in the days before this year’s herbst conference “Welcome to the former West”, which will take place on Sat 08/10 & Sun 09/10.
Workshop 1
Jochen Becker / Daniel Kötter / metroZones (DE)
Chinafrika. Under Construction
China and the African continent, it is assumed, are the two world regions where the future of globalisation is being drawn up. The research and art project “Chinafrika. Under Construction” has been analysing the cultural relations between both areas for several years, highlighting a process that has fundamentally changed the role of Europe, among other things. With a wide range of research materials and documentaries from Guangzhou, Lagos, Hong Kong, Lubumbashi and other regions, the workshop illustrates the cultural and economic transformations ensuing from this transnational process. Accompanied by guests from China, Africa and Styria, the participants in the workshop will be exploring theoretical and everyday experiences of the Chinafrika phenomenon.
Workshop 2
Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst (DE)
Critical Whiteness and more
What does it mean to be white? This seemingly banal question remains rarely asked. Most people who define themselves as white have never thought about being white, implicitly considering it the norm from which all “others” who are not white deviate. Whiteness almost always remains unmarked and unreflected – with the focus usually being on the others. Yet being white is quite obviously connected with privileges and power relations that define relationships and interactions with “other” people. In the workshop held by professor of African Studies Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, the participants reflect on what it is like to be white or not white, and about their experience. The aim is to make whiteness visible as a constructed category of power. Where can we identify white power in everyday culture? And can white people decide to opt out of whiteness?
Workshop 3
Rolando Vazquez (NL/MX)
From Modernity to the Decolonial
The workshop held by Mexican-Dutch sociologist Rolando Vazquez focuses on the decolonial critique of modernity. It will show how coloniality is deeply embedded in our everyday life. In a dialogue with participants, Vazquez questions the common understanding of progress, development and consumption that can not be thought in separation from processes of destitution, extraction, denial and erasure. The aim is to discuss to what extent the modern notion of the subject contradicts forms of community, responsibility and the possibility of an ethical life. The decolonial option presents questions hitherto excluded from the modern canon. What are the conditions to recover the possibilities of relating, of listening to truly intercultural perspectives?
Workshop 4
Marjetica Potrč (DE/SI)
Participating in World Building
For Marjetica Potrč, the appropriation of space by the local community – be it in the rainforest or at the heart of the city – is essential for the construction of a new citizenship. What is the role of artists who do community-based projects? How can they support the needs of local groups without imposing their own ideas? How should they interact with local groups, institutions and government? And crucially, what is the role of residents in shaping their own environment? The Slovenian artist and architect based in Ljubljana and Berlin reports from her practice and invites workshop participants to contribute their own examples and experiences and to discuss them at the “New Graz” exhibition at the center for contemporary art < rotor >.
