Body Hegemonies 2017: An Experimental Transfer

Monica Clare van der Haagen-Wulff

Body Hegemonies is an artistic project aimed at exploring and making transparent some of the themes of epistemic violence and hegemonic orders resulting from the legacy of colonialism and slavery, as the hidden flip-side of modernity and enlightenment. Our aim was to examine the Eurocentric logic of dehumanization and processes of exclusion from the perspective of bodies and their embeddedness within these hegemonic structures. The goal was to use artistic methods as tools to research topics commonly examined within an academic framework. The project focused on aspects of bodies that have been/are being excluded or made invisible within contemporary and historical discourses. “Body Hegemonies” worked on the trans-disciplinary interface (entanglement) of theorists, performers and everyday practitioners (experts), in an attempt to make possible other forms of knowing and knowledge production. Specifically, we tried to performatively re-inscribe the historically erased body within the production of knowledge. To engage with and explore these questions, a one-week laboratory was held in which six artists/(social)scientists gathered in a secluded location near Cologne Germany to hold video conversations with international experts over three days on the topics mentioned above. Resulting from these conversations, the Cologne participants presented individual performative responses to the group, which in turn were worked into a “performative score” presented to the public on the last day of the laboratory. This was flanked by a mini-symposium with two international scholars on the topic of body-hegemonies to expand the discursive field within which to locate and understand the artistic explorations.

We would like to thank all participants of Body Hegemonies 2017 for their cooperation on the project and throughout the writing of this article:

The performance participants: Iani, Ciraj, Kelvin, Monica, Fabian, Michael

The video conference partners: Gunnar, Dierk, Lea, Paschal, Kris, Sari

The guest lecturers: Devleena and Jules

The host of the panel discussion: Ulrike

We would also like to thank Matthias Aures, the cameraman for the performance/symposium, Matthias Meurer our dedicated cameraman, performance video editor and technical handyman, Amin Niazy for offering technical assistance during the performance, Adrian Silvestri for design and branding, Feruze Kalaci, Olivia Goroncy and the team of helpers for their hard work and assistance leading up to and during the project and performance /symposium.

All photographic images presented in this publication are courtesy of Michael Lazar and were taken from the rehearsal process, the performance and from his personal photographic archive.

We are grateful to the four anonymous reviewers of this work and editorial team at JAR who provided constructive comments and helped to improve this manuscript especially Michael Schwab for his hard work in helping us format our vision.

This work would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors listed below.

Finally, we would like to thank you, the reader, for coming along on this journey with us. We hope you found it enjoyable and enlightening.