08/09/10. July 2022
Embrace Platform 2
Künstlerhaus Hannover
Sophienstr. 2, 30159 Hannover [GER]

The nomadic exhibition at Künstlerhaus Hannover shows seven different positions. The contributions by Liliana Zeic and Karol Radziszewski & Queer Archives Institute deal with the perspective of queer historiography in Poland. Zeic looks at the history of Polish non-normative women through a portrait of the Polish novelist Narcyza Żmichowska. The performance A pine with six hands tells the story of one of the first transgender women described in the European press, who committed suicide in Wroclaw in 1906, performed by the drag queen Twoja Stara.

Karol Radziszewski gives an insight into the Queer Archives Institute, an alternative collection from Central and Eastern Europe that he founded. Edka Jarząb shows an audio manifesto that was developed together with workshop participants as part of the exhibition Embrace at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe. The work deals with the concept of 'safe space'. The workshop explored how 'safe spaces' can contribute to facilitating the discussion of queerness, femmehood and high sensitivity in everyday life, especially in view of the prevailing normative models of social coexistence.

Impressions

  • Exhibition
  • A pine with six hand
    Performance – Liliana Zeic & Twoja Stara

    A pine with six hands Liliana Zeic, Performed by Twoja Stara. The performance tells the story of one of the first transgender women described in the European press, who committed suicide in Wroclaw in 1906: Alma Dina de Paradeda. It is a story about the beautiful city of Wroclaw, a hill of rubble, burning books and a fake bride. It's about a king and a fisherman, brown battalions and paper flowers. The role of a pine tree who tells a fairy tale about Alma is played by drag actress Twoja Stara.

  • Opening
    Concert – Iris Forest

    Music - dark pop, dark soul, experimental pop minimalism. Iris Forest is the stage name of Irene Dmytruk - musician and singer and from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Through piano, voice and electronic elements she creates minimalistic and playful soundscapes, full of rhythmically unstable narratives and abstract lyrics.

  • Domestic Flights
    Participatory Body Performance – Edka Jarzab

    The piece "Domestic Flights" from Edka Jarzab [PL] is inspired by Teach Yourself to Fly - one of Pauline Oliveros' Sonic Meditations dedicated to pilot Amelia Earhart. Recorded during lockdown, with no social interaction, Jarzab was all about finding a singing partner in your hoover or fridge. Domestic flights is an invitation to listen to ourselves (your body, your house, your memory) and to compose / dissect sounds, with the expectation of isopolyphony (*folkloric singing style, of the historical region of Epirus in southern Albania and northwestern Greece) made with the voice and the sounding environment. The following is a premiere of a cassette/album.

  • Yo Baila sola
    Dj Set – Eduarda Bones

    A mix of African beats: acid, some deep house, shangaan, gqom, raps, cumbia. A song from Trinidad about how it's better to marry an orange. I sat in the studio and then I started dancing myself.

  • The uncanny voice and electronic music
    Workshop – Edka Jarzab & Radek Sirko

    Electronic music and voice workshop and artist talk with Edka Jarząb and Radek Sirko. We invite all beginners, musicians, producers and sound artists who are taking their first steps in the field of digital music production. We will mainly work with the voice - we will try to de-gender it, make it sound distorted and otherworldly. We will also take a look at the range of possible digital sound manipulations that can be useful in the production of electronic music, soundscapes, radio plays and audio works. Let's create soundscapes with our voices, let's hear different ways the voice can sound and bring out the uncanny expressions and otherness, polyphony of selves and identities.

    The workshop will be conducted in Ableton 11 Suite software, of which a free 90-day version can be downloaded from http://www.ableton.com/en/trial/. Topics that will be discussed include the audio channel and its components (microphone, speakers, mixer), sound recording, digital audio, musical hardware and software, sound synthesis, sampling, modulation effects, compression, sound editing, automation and MIDI.

  • Short Films
    Screening – Cooperation Pawilon & Her Docs

    Diorama Von Zoya Laktionova • Ukraine, 2018,12 min.
    We Hope You Wont Need To Come Back von Anastazja Naumenko • Poland, 2020, 9 min.
    Side Roads von Julia Sokolnicka • Poland & Netherlands, 2015, 17 min.
    Let Me In von Karolina Biedrowska • Poland, 2021, 6 min.
    Polish Women On Strike von Kasia Prus • Poland, 2016, 3 min.
    The Vibrant Village von Weronika Jurkiewicz • Poland, Hungary, 2019, 7 min.
    Shooting Stars von Magda Jaroszewicz • Germany & Poland, 2019, 17 min.

  • Roundtable
    Discussionpanel – Liliana Zeic, Karol Radziszewski, Adele*Mike Frydetzki & Prof. Dr. Fiona Mcgovern

    On the formation of transnational and interdisciplinary alliances in activist-artistic practice with Liliana Zeic, Karol Radziszewski and all artists* present, moderated by Adele*Mike Dittrich Frydetzki and Prof. Dr. Fiona Mcgovern. (The conversation will be held in English.)

  • Rearrange Desire - Echter Sex 2
    Performance – Alissa Mirea Weidenfeld

    queer- feminist- intimate- erotic- poetic- puzzle poetry

  • Matinee Film
    Screening – Karol Radziszewski

    Kisieland • Poland, 2012, 30 min, Polish with English subtitles
    Ryszard Kisiel, the editor of Filo - one of the first gay zines in Central and Eastern Europe opens his archive to artist Karol Radziszewski.

    Powidoki • Karol Radziszewski [PL], Poland, 2018, 21 min Polish with English subtitles
    Afterimages tells the story of a roll of film that Ryszard Kisiel accidentally exposed twice. The superimposed negative from the late 1980s is the starting point for both Kisiel's personal story and a portrait of the late PRL gay scene.

  • Queer Archives Institute
    Workshop & Discussion – Karol Radziszewski

    In a lecture, Karol Radziszewski will present the ways in which archive-based art can have a political impact on our present and future, looking at its many aspects (e.g. cultural, social and sexual). The long-term project entitled Queer Archives Institute (QAI) will be presented as an example of this methodology. The presentation is an invitation to a shared, open discussion about rewriting and revising history from a queer perspective.

    The Queer Archives Institute is a non-profit, artist-run organisation dedicated to the research, collection, digitisation, presentation, exhibition, analysis and artistic interpretation of queer archives, with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Founded in November 2015 by Karol Radziszewski, QAI is a long-term project open to transnational collaboration with artists, activists and academic researchers.

  • Live electronics
    Concert – Duy Gebord

    Duy Gebord is an adventurous electronic music project that combines experimental, idm, industrial, acid, ambient, minimal, glitch, techno, noise and live improvisations.

Artists

  • Adele*Mike Dittrich Frydetzki

    Moderator:in Roundtable / Panel: Adele*Mike Dittrich Frydetzki (they/them) [DE] works in the performing arts, as an academic:in and activist:in, focusing on research on (non-)consensual communication in rehearsal environments, as well as artistic research on post-eastern feminisms and sex-positive queer cultures and practices.

  • Prof. Dr. Fiona McGovern

    Moderator Roundtable/Discussion: Prof. Dr. Fiona McGovern (she/her) [EN] is an art historian, author and curator. Her research, curatorial practice and teaching focus on (artistic) exhibition history and theory, ethics of curating, and inter- and transdisciplinary approaches in the arts.

  • Iris Forest

    Guest post from the UNESCO City of Music Kharkiv: Iris Forest [UKR] is the stage name of Irene Dmytruk - musician and singer and from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Through piano, voice and electronic elements, she creates minimalist and playful soundscapes, full of rhythmically unstable narratives and abstract lyrics. She plays dark pop, dark soul, experimental pop minimalism.

  • Edka Jarząb

    Edka Jarząb (aka Eduarda Bones) [PL] is a sound artist who practices Deep Listening as a starting point for sound activism.She lives in Sokołowsko - a village in the mountains, in the south of Poland. She studied with Pauline Oliveros and learned Hindustani Raga in Varanasi/India. She is interested in the voice as a bridge between the public and private spheres, listening, singing and improvisation as a practice of social resistance. She records and analyses the sound sphere of protests. Using extended voice techniques, radio waves, field recordings and electronics, she creates an audiosphere for her personal and collaborative performance works. She is co-founder of Warsaw community radio Kapitał and author of poetic radio plays and interventions. From 2020 to 2021 she was a resident of the experimental studio WORM in Rotterdam and a permanent collaborator of the interdisciplinary platform Q-O2 in Brussels.

  • Tubi Malcharzik

    Tubi Malcharzik (they/them) [DE] - winner:in of the Open call - lives and works as a performer, dramaturge and DJ in Hanover and Vienna.Based on autobiographical experiences, Tubi artistically explores queer forms of memory and narrative culture, distorted pop songs, Upper Silesian misunderstandings and post-east migrant perspectives - both in solo performances and in the form of collective works.The works have been shown and invited at Schwankhalle Bremen, Theater im Pavillon (Hanover), Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Hyperreality Festival (Vienna), Multitude Festival (Hanover) and Körber Studio Junge Regie (Hamburg), among others.In 2019 Tubi founded the DJ and club collective 'soft spot' together with Freund:innen, which creates spaces for experimental, electronic sounds in Hanover and searches for queer-feminist politics on and off the dancefloor.In addition to local work, the group focuses on exchange with other queer-feminist collectives, most recently with Chilldo 池糖 (Chengdu) and Lokalni Poznańscy Voguerzy (Poznań).

  • Kerstin Möller

    Kerstin Möller [DE] is a transdisciplinary artist and urbanist whose way of working unfolds on the threshold between experimental performance installation, choreography, media art and audiovisual and spatial research. Her work is about creating transdisciplinary collaborative alliances between feminism, ecology, landscapes, climate and space.She studied in England, Iceland, Germany and Sweden.She is currently an adjunct lecturer in product design at the State University of Design, where she teaches interdisciplinary courses on climate change impacts, climate change, design research and activism.

  • Karol Radziszewski

    Karol Radziszewski [PL] works with film, photography, painting and installation, creating interdisciplinary projects. His archive-based methodology encompasses a range of cultural, historical, religious, social and gender references.He has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of DIK Magazine since 2005; in 2015 he founded the Queer Archives Institute. His work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Kunsthalle Wien and the New Museum, New York, among others.

  • Radek Sirko

    Radek Sirko (aka Duy Gebord) [PL] lives and works in Katowice, Poland.Radek is a sound artist, producer, cultural expert and academic lecturer, he holds a PhD in Intermedial Arts from Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Fine Arts in Poznań.He regularly releases albums of experimental electronic music, mainly under the name Duy Gebord. Co-founder of the Audile Snow label, which specialises in releasing young Polish electronic music on micro SD cards.

  • Karolina Sobel

    Karolina Sobel [DE/PL] is a visual artist.She uses various media with a documentary approach that blur the line between fiction and reality.In her practice, she uses photography as a tool for her visual research.Her interests include modes of representation of social issues such as identity formation, the process of building communities, social exclusion and hierarchies. In 2020, she was a fellow of the Kunststiftung Baden Württemberg. She is currently an academic assistant for artistic photography at the State University of Design Karlsruhe.

  • Twoja Stara

    Twoja Stara - drag queen performer - Mother you never had, drag the performer, the drag vivist and glam clown! On stage she draws inspiration from everything that made her a monster: a musical, a B-class cinema and a society that is uncomfortable for queer people. Mother of the monthly show Your Drag Sounds Familiar. Scenically connected with Warsaw theatre cabaret group. Wonders on stage in theatres, nightclubs and Pride events.

  • Alissa Mirea Weidenfeld

    Alissa Mirea Weidenfeld lives and works in Hanover and Braunschweig, her artistic practice is multimedia. She moves between conceptual and intuitive approaches; always on a sensual quest, exploring themes and materials with curiosity. Her aim here is to question, to create connections and intimate spaces while remaining strong, gentle, vulnerable and angry.

  • Liliana Zeic

    Liliana Zeic [PL] is a visual artist and activist with a PhD in Fine Arts. In her artistic practice, she analyses social issues from a feminist-queer perspective, deals with the issues of queerness and non-heteronormativity and draws from the experiences of growing up in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. She works with video, photography, object and text, creating intermedial and performative research-based projects. Since February 2020, she has been working under the name Zeic.

Embrace is a nomadic platform for interdisciplinary cultural and artistic exchange that aims to foster national and international collaborations. Embrace Platform was founded by Karolina Sobel and Kerstin Möller in 2020 and brings together a variety of media and performative arts such as video works, photography, sound installations, performances, concerts and workshops. For the 2022 event in Hannover, Nora Brünger has become part of the curatorial team. Embrace advocates for gender equality and the normalisation of non-binary gender identities in Germany, Poland and Europe. The focus is on artistic exchange on the topics of LGBTQIA+ and women's rights as well as forms of peaceful resistance. The project shows artistic works and positions by Polish artists and artists with a biographical reference to Hanover and from other UNESCO City of Music partner cities at the Künstlerhaus Hanover and the KoKi Hanover.

The nomadic exhibition at Künstlerhaus Hannover shows seven different positions. The contributions by Liliana Zeic and Karol Radziszewski & Queer Archives Institute deal with the perspective of queer historiography in Poland. Zeic looks at the history of Polish non-normative women through a portrait of the Polish novelist Narcyza Żmichowska. The performance A pine with six hands tells the story of one of the first transgender women described in the European press, who committed suicide in Wroclaw in 1906, performed by the drag queen Twoja Stara. Karol Radziszewski gives an insight into the Queer Archives Institute, an alternative collection from Central and Eastern Europe that he founded. Edka Jarząb shows an audio manifesto that was developed together with workshop participants as part of the exhibition Embrace at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe. The work deals with the concept of 'safe space'. The workshop explored how 'safe spaces' can contribute to facilitating the discussion of queerness, femmehood and high sensitivity in everyday life, especially in view of the prevailing normative models of social coexistence.

On Saturday, 09.07.2022, there will be an exclusive cinema programme entitled Europaremont at KoKi, a collaboration with the Pawilon Cultural Centre in Poznan and with the Her Docs! film festival. From the UNESCO City of Music Kharkiv we welcome the musician Iris Forest, whose music moves between dark pop and dark soul, who will open the event on Friday with a concert. We also welcome the experimental musician Radek Sirko from the UNESCO City of Music Katowice, who will also give a music workshop together with Edka Jarzab (The uncanny voice and electronic music). Contributions from Hanover will come from Tubi Malcharzik and Alissa Mirea Weidenfeld. We would like to thank the City of Hanover, the Künstlerhaus and Koki Kino in Hanover, our lovely jury who selected contributions for Hanover (Hanne König, Charlotte Eifler, Nora Brünger), the artists, panellists and everyone without whom the platform could not have taken place!

Copyright images by Marta Bogdanska.

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