Departing from broadly researching radical tenderness as a performative strategy to question and transform our social interactions in public space during the MA Performing Public Space program, my current artistic research focuses on the creation of an embodied archive of radical tenderness. In this performative and movement based research I’m exploring how we demonstrate and manifest tenderness through our bodies and in interaction with each other. Therefore the body doesn’t only work as a research device, but also as an archive itself. In her book “The archive and the repertoire“ (2003), Diana Taylor calls upon a constant reexamination of the relationship between embodied performances and the production of knowledge. How can performance transmit knowledge and therefore claim social memory and identity? (Taylor, 2003). With my artistic research, I’m exploring what kind of knowledge in form of gestures and movements is archived within our bodies and how this knowledge can be transformed into a collective practice of tenderness. With collecting and preserving tender gestures, movements and interactions through performance, I aim to create an embodied archive, so that the knowledge, that is inherited in our bodies can be practiced, questioned and (re-)produced collectively. How can tenderness outside of the realm of our sexual and intimate relationships and as a collective practice look like?
Our bodies are producers of physical as well as social movements. Together we are moving and being moved by and within the city that we create throughout our everyday life routines. Tenderness opposes the fast, chaotic, exclusive and restless reality we are part of:
It is in our bodies, that we carry the knowledge of tenderness, as a careful caress, as a concrete action towards another subject, that is curious and careful at the same time, as a body-mind state of being or as an invitation to extend the present moment, mostly in the realm of our sexual or intimate relationships. But we are not only producing these movements, we also archive them inside our bodies. They are manifested in the way we interact and look at the world. How we are in touch with each other and the world that surrounds us.
I believe, that in order to create a collective and radical tender practice, we have to first develop a common vocabulary on tenderness that is spoken with and through our bodies. Therefore, on the following pages you will see some of the material of my current artistic research: Two female bodies tenderly interacting with each other as well as with their environment, exploring different ways of expressing and manifesting tenderness through their (female) bodies in a non-sexual relationship as friends and co-creators, recognizing that tenderness doesn’t always has to be soft and sweet. Sometimes it is a push, a provocation, a negotiation, but it is never violent. It is taking responsibility for oneself and each other in a world where we increasingly separate ourselves from each other and our environment. It is a practice of connecting and transforming our social interactions, based on mutual care, affection and responsibility.
During this performative investigation, our movements and interactions are captured and preserved through the lense of a female photographer, working with analogue photography. In a digital reality where we are used to take as many pictures as we want, whenever we want and from whatever we want, can analogue photography, that requires a careful process of decision making because of it limits resources, be perceived as a practice of tenderness too?
In addition to the visual material there is also text material, that I’ve created in order to propose another way of producing written text as a form of archive, that acknowledges embodied performance as knowledge transmitter. My initial idea was to create a glossary of terms connected to tenderness such as hospitality, care, affection, etc. but in the early stages, it became apparent that the rigid forms generally used for glossaries do not apply for the sorts of embodied knowledge produced by performing tenderness. I have found that a more fluid and poetic form is more applicable, and it still holds the potential to touch upon the different terms regarding the archive of tenderness. This format aims to invite the reader into experiencing tenderness as a practice, that first of all starts from their own body, draws from their own senses.
In a society, that is loud, chaotic and restless - does the practice of radical tenderness becomes a protest? Is it a revolution? First, it is an invitation.
Performer: Janne Schröder & Tabea Sandmann
Analogue Photography: Célia Cotelle
Bibliographical references:
Tokarczuk, O. (2019). The tender Narrator. Nobel Lecture. Prize Lecture in Literature 2018.
Taylor, D. (2003). The archive and the repertoire. Durham: Duke University Press
“Tenderness is deep emotional concern about another being, its fragility, its unique nature, and its lack of immunity to suffering and the effects of time. Tenderness perceives the bonds that connect us, the similarities and sameness between us. It is a way of looking that shows the world as being alive, living, interconnected, cooperating with, and codependent on itself.“
(Tokarzcuk, 2019)
By developing a practice that prioritizes the body as a knowledge transmitter, I’m critically questioning the hierarchization of text documents above embodied performance not only as archives, but also as means for knowledge production. What can we learn about tenderness as an embodied practice when looking through the lens of performance, that we cannot learn from a text document? Particularly, when the lens is applied through a female gaze? Therefore, I’m not only questioning how we are looking at the knowledge that is produced and transmitted through our bodies, but also at the way it is archived, made accessible, silenced or empowered.
An invitation.
Tenderness is an invitation.
Who are you tender to?
You cannot possess tenderness, you can only offer it. How can we practice being tender with each other? Is it a state of your body or your mind? Intertwined and distilled in your senses. And at any moment it might disappear.
When our eyes meet, do our bodies touch?
To see the world with eyes that really want to see it. To see the in between spaces, to outline the imperceptible, or at least to try. To embrace the fear of being disappointed. To recognize the fragility of the other and oneself. To celebrate it, as a space to connect.
Extending the present moment. Extending our skin.
Exposing our vulnerability. By accepting it, by showing it, we celebrate it. Together, and beyond. Respectfully we hold it in our hands. Like the sand at the beach, that is still wet from the sea. And because it can be dropped at any moment, it is so precious. No contract, no promise, only trust. It is a moment of moving in standstill. It is an extension of the present moment. An extension of your skin, your breath, your vulnerability, your love. Hold on to it.
The soft skin, touches the warm stones. The stones that used to be cold, warmed by the sun. Lines drawn on our hands, extended by the stone. Different textures meeting each other, following the lines and shapes of each other, contributing to ones image of bodies-landscapes. The extended skin.
Bricks, asphalt, heated by the sun. Fabricated lines, following ones movement through the city. Different textures shaping ones velocity. Encounters between skin, traffic lights, metro stations, cash machines. One touch opens doors, flashes light, takes money, gives tickets. Your environment is in touch with you. How do you touch your environment? The extended skin.
If you would like to know more about my work or if you are interested in collaborating, please don’t hesitate to visit my website https://janneschroeder.com or contact me at janne.schrd@gmail.com.
Janne Schröder
Listen through your skin, negotiate through your body.
We hold each other, pushing, pulling, shifting weights. Giving and receiving is perfectly balanced, otherwise we fall. What do we fall into? Soft touch, gentle push. To lead, to let yourself fall, to accept, to hold. To let yourself being guided. To be responsible with your choices, holding the other body. To who you give yourself up to? To be responsible with your choices, letting your own body go, into the hands of another. And if we trust the hands of a stranger?
The touch is the only sense that develops with age.
There is no negotiation without conflict. No trust, without risk. No love, without the possibility of being hurt. It’s our human beauty. And if we take off the masks? Melt into my eyes and find the landscapes inside. You can dance with the eyes of a stranger.
Tenderness will never arrive when we want it more than we’re feeling it. But sometimes when you don’t expect it, it rolls up your spine until your fingertips. It arrives at your touch, your gaze, your listening. It makes you see the world with eyes that really want to see it. It makes you hold your body and the one of another, with your hands and in your eyes, without even touching it. Without even knowing it. Caress it, take care of it, before it is gone.
To be foolish is the loudest form of intimacy. The loudest form of being part of something, The loudest form of not being part of something.
Radical tenderness is caressing the eyes of a stranger without them knowing. Is extending your skin, to melt into your environment. To let the landscapes be explored inside you. Is accepting the vulnerability of the other, without even knowing. Is loving in solidarity and taking the responsibility for it.
Who are you tender to?
You cannot posses tenderness. You can only offer it. And at any moment, it might disappear.
Janne Schröder (1995) is a performer, writer and artistic researcher. In her work, she explores the connection from the individual to the collective (urban) body, through socially engaged public art practices. Combining movement, creative writing and theatre techniques, she creates performances that explore our social fabric and propose a collective imagination of how else we could move in and within the city that we are part of, belong to and create through our daily life practices.
In her Bachelor's degree she studied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice in Hildesheim (Germany) and took part in the international Master Program "Performing Public Space" in Tilburg, the Netherlands, that she successfully finished in 2023. Since 2020 she is part of the artistic direction of PELE - Espaço de Contacto Social e Cultural in Porto, Portugal, developing artistic interventions in community contexts. In her current artistic research, she explores radical tenderness as a performative strategy to question and transform our social interactions.
