2022::The Performativity of Nonviolence in Translation::by Zoya Sardashti

Jan. 21 _Feb. 6.2022

„The Performativity of Nonviolence in Translation“

by artist researcher Zoya Sardashti of Home Soil Projects in collaboration with Liebig12

promoted by Vorspiel / Transmediale & CTM Festival

This project activates theories in The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind by Judith Butler within multilingual  and nonverbal contexts.

This format of collective practice will be shared through Zoom as a series of artistic practice-as-research sessions on Jan. 26 & 27 from 19.00-21.00.

On Jan. 30 a virtual performance will take place on Zoom from 16.00 – 18.00.

An exhibition documenting the process and performance will be exhibited at Liebig12 in Friedrichshain from January 30 – February 6.

To RSVP for the virtual practice-as-research sessions and/or performance please email Zoya at homesoilprojects@gmail.com

Current Covid_19 regulation apply_

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Jan 21 @ Vorspiel / Transmediale & CTM Festival Opening – Silent Green, Kuppelhalle

Zoya will give a 30 min talk to introduce the project.

Duration 18.00-18.30

Silent Green Kulturquartier

Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, DE

https://vorspiel.berlin/events/vorspiel-opening-2022

::

Jan. 26 & 27 _Virtual Practice-as-Research Sessions

Duration 19.00-21.00

on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/4689923045

The practice-as-research sessions are an opportunity to activate theories of nonviolence through experiential, performance-based activities. As a collective we will read excerpts of „The Force of Nonviolence“ by Judith Butler out loud, and experiment with ways to access theory physically and emotionally. We will write our personal experience in relation to theoretical text. This includes performative writing (similar to writing for performance, theatre or poetry), and performance (somatic and movement) practices. Finally, we will share how we imagine nonviolence as a practice to emerge in specific contexts. The strength of the project is contingent on consistent participation. You are strongly encouraged to attend all sessions since the purpose is to collaborate as a collective.

Jan. 30_Virtual Performance

Virtual performance with participants from practice-as-research sessions and research collective.

Duration 16.00-18.00

on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/4689923045_ Audience can join as well!

Video cameras are turned off. Names are changed to the first letter of your chosen name. A profile picture is replaced with a color. A group of voices assemble online. Similar to a Greek chorus, people use the porosity of words to cascade into virtual space. An audience is invited to feel a force with force that generates an imagined ethical relation that has yet to be rendered visible.

Jan. 31 – Feb. 6_sound installation at Liebig12

daily 4 to 8pm

by appointment only at https://meetings.hubspot.com/homesoilprojects
please bring a Mask and a Negative Test

Documentation of outcomes during the virtual research sessions and performance will be exhibited as a sound installation. Guests are welcome to relax and listen to a collective narration of how nonviolent practice was enacted by people in multiple languages across eight time zones. Zoya, the initiator of the project, will be present to discuss the work and share saffron spirits. 

Extended Project Description

Witnessing violence on social media creates a heightened sense of urgency that can evoke a feeling of disjuncture in physical reality. In June 2020, Zoya Sardashti formed a reading group that evolved into a research collective as a response to ongoing police brutality in the U.S. because forms of activism, such as the framing of Black Lives Matter protests, were labeled as violent by opposition groups. The debate over the legitimacy of how public protests are enacted by certain media groups threatens freedom of expression and other modes of solidarity.

So the research collective, composed of eight people in five different time zones, took up the task of creating new approaches to enacting nonviolent assembly by translating theories in The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind by Judith Butler within multilingual and nonverbal contexts.

We created a format of inclusive practice as a mode of artistic research that resignifies Butler’s theory through the lens of performance-making processes and cultural mediation.

We approach nonviolence as a technique of using both singular and collective methodologies to make links across multiple subjective experiences through assembly formation.