Events 16.-19.09.2021
Exhibition 16.-26.09.2021, Thursday-Sundays 15-19h
at Kunstpunkt, Schlegelstraße 6, 10115 Berlin
As part of Berlin Art Week.
With artists:
Daniela Bershan
Natal Igor Dobkin
MINQ
Daddypuss Rex
The body, like the bog, is a site of contradiction. Internal conflict, inherited trauma, and frayed nervous systems are interwoven with physiological capacities for sensitivity, pleasure, and renewal. The body is as much a vessel to luxuriate in as it is one to die in. Bogs remind us that bodies do not need to meet the traditional definition of fertile, and that those deviances from the norm have been deemed trivial or even dangerous.
There are aspects of the bog ecology that make us want to dwell there, face down in the mud. They are fermentation pits for earth’s residue, including toxic runoff from capitalist extraction and urbanisation – we can relate. Skills sets like preservation and petrification are deemed less valuable than growth and production, and for that they are desecrated. The non-harmonious communality of the bog teaches us that differences do not need resolving.
We live in these flesh suits, and their life cycles foster a human relationship to time, but by sitting in the timescape of the bog, COVEN BERLIN’s SOMABOG slows things down. This immersive performance format creates the conditions for deep listening, somatic excavation, decolonizing the lineages of body practices, and delving into the deep rhythm of reproductive labor. Events run long, there are beds in the space, and guided meditations help you dig for peaty parts of your somatic body that you might not recognize. Amidst the hurry of Berlin Art Week, the SOMABOG will give ample time for you to encounter the poetics of your lived experience, your body, and how you dwell within it.
Exhibition Access Information:
The venue is barrier-free but the gender-neutral toilets are not. The space is such that there are big windows that open to a large public outdoor area, so the indoor spaces are well ventilated. Chairs with backs are available and speakers will be given microphones.
Please come with a negative Corona test result (or vaccination or COVID recovery). When indoors, everyone needs to wear a mask. When moving around outside, you also need a mask, unless you are seated with appropriate distance from others.
If you have needs that we can help accommodate to ensure your participation in these events, such as childcare, translation or pick-up from public transportation, please send us an email to: hello@covenberlin.com.
Kunstpunkt is close to the U-Bahn Station Naturkundemuseum, S-Bahn Station Nordbahnhof and the stops of the tram M12, M5, M6, M8, M10.
Further access info for each event will be published soon, with the registration form.
Program:
Thursday 16th September
OPENING: 18-22h
Ambient DJ set performed by MINQ: 19h-21h
(no registration needed)
Friday 17th
Slow Transitions – Workshop by Natal Igor Dobkin: 11h-15h
(This is a registration-only event. Please send a registration email to hello@covenberlin.com.)
›Slow Transitions‹ is a workshop facilitated by Natal Igor Dobkin exploring how slowness can be rebellious. Taking this temporality as a methodology for change, the workshop will explore “mythically” linear movements and how they can be radical when they are in slow motion, such as with gender transition, aging, immigration, and the slow process of committing to relationships.
Language: English
The workshop length is 4 hours with a break.
No need for any special performative background but you are more than welcome to bring materials or anything that intrigues you under the title of “slow transitions”.
Saturday 18th
OCEAN: Performance + Installation by Daniela Bershan: 15h-21h30
(No registration needed. Participants are invited to drop by at any particular moment during the opening time and stay as much as they want.)
Participants are invited to make themselves comfortable in the circular set-up of ›Ocean‹ to a live-soundtrack that slowly transforms from intimacy and fragility to vastness. Alongside unfolding symbolic gestures, sounds, and objects, ›Ocean‹ merges familiar acts of reproductive labour and feminized work, meeting the condition for much needed affective, ecological, and political change. ›Ocean‹ invokes that we are much more resourceful and connected than we allow ourselves to be.
OCEAN is a system powered by Daniela Bershan icw Deborah Birch, Sara Leghissa and Sabrina Seifried.
Guided and performed by: Daniela Bershan, Sara Leghissa, Kate McIntosh
Live Sound: Daniela Bershan
Costumes: Sabrina Seifried
Set and Objects: Daniela Bershan
Energy Coaching: Fi James
Video Trailer : Christopher Daley
Co-Production: MDT, Goethe Institute Stockholm, Kunstencentrum Buda, Centre-Pompidou Kanal
Sunday 19th
Sonic Utopias | Research Lab: Deep listening workshop by MINQ: 12h-14h
(All are welcome to attend this QTBIPoC centered workshop. It is registration only. Please send a registration email to hello@covenberlin.com)
Sonic Utopias’ Research Lab is a space for play and experimentation around mindfulness, sound, Deep Listening, voice and movement led by MINQ. This lab focuses on QTBIPoC (Queer, Trans, Black/Indigenous/People of Color) exploring ways to deepen internal connection in order to deepen interpersonal connection with the aim to create a series of practices to be used as a gateway to more collaboration and understanding within communities as well as a tool for activating creativity within artistic spaces.
Language: English
This workshop is very sound based. You will be asked to sit and walk during the workshop, but it’s not necessary to do either. Sage and incense will be burnt, and there will be Mugwort tea to drink.
African Transmutational Practices: a lecture and interactive ritual by Daddypuss Rex: 19h-21h
(This is a registration-only event. Please send a registration email to hello@covenberlin.com)
(Re)Awakening the Selves – African Transmutational Practices
A comparative deep dive into the ways in which the Ancient Egyptians and the Yoruba people viewed the body’s transformative power and how bodies, both live and preserved ones, were used as a conduit to transcend the material plane. The session will also explore the ways in which this original afro-centric view of the body has decomposed in relation to a eurocentric colonial perspective.
Transmutation is defined as ‘the action of changing or the state of being changed into another form and/or the conversion of one element into another either naturally or artificially’. This session aims to explore different access points of exploring the various layers that comprise the ‘selves’ and to allow space to intentionally consciously and subconsciously change, transform and to be transformed in our environments and by our environments whilst under the guidance of the Harvest Full Moon.
Language: English
German/French translation is possible by Daddypuss during the session, please speak with them about it or let us know by email. The session will ask you to sit, lie down and walk, but not all are necessary. There will visual elements presented via projector, oral description will be provided by facilitator. The event is not particularly child-friendly.
The medicinal plants mugwort and yarrow will be used/consumed – these plants are not recommended for use by pregnant people, those breastfeeding and/or those with an allergy to daisies. Incense will also be used as part of the ritual.
Participants are encouraged to exercise their agency during the session – if something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it! There will not be interaction between participants and 1,5m distance is encouraged. Masks recommended but not necessary when seated/lying down.
Artists’ Bios
Daniela Bershan a.k.a. Baba Electronica is an artist, DJ and independent researcher. Through her work – ranging from sculpture and performance to community building and sound – she proposes practices of collective intimacy and care as a way to study and honor affective and relational structures; Her current work is exploring the ecological, historical, emotional and political dimensions of reproductive labour and its re-organization through different registers. She composes and holds potentia-spaces for erotic/aesthetic practices and non-monotonic thinking.
#djsarelisteners
Daniela co-founded and directed FATFORM (NL), and is co-organizing icw Valentina Desideri ELSEWHERE & OTHERWISE at Performing Arts Forum (FR). Her work and collaborations have been presented at ao. 29th Sao Paulo Biennale (BR), De Appel Arts Centre (NL), MaerzMusik (DE), KunstenfestivaldesArts (BE), W139 (NL), Portikus (DE), NAS Gallery Sydney (AU), Capacete (BR), Paradiso (NL), Dansehallerne (DK), MDT (SE), Le CentQuatre (FR), CentroCentro (ES), Tempo Festival (BR) and Triennale Luxembourg (LUX).
Natal Igor Dobkin, based both in Berlin and Tel aviv, is a performance artist, a teacher, and an adjunct professor in the department of gender studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, for which he/they have been noted an outstanding lecturer. He/They teach a performance-art course at the Pre-Academic Art School “The Garage”, for students facing mental health challenges. Dobkin regularly facilitates an independent workshop in Tel Aviv that deals with the performers’ identity in gender and sexual contexts, and in the stage world. Dobkin holds a M.A in gender studies from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, and a B.A in theater directing and pedagogy from Seminar Hakibutzim College, Tel Aviv.
MINQ is a Sound Artist, DJ, Yoga and Mindfulness Instructor and independent researcher living in Berlin. Their current work aims to discover what lies at the intersection of Mindfulness, Movement and Sound using Deep Listening practices, mindfulness exercises, yoga principals, and vocal practices in a space that centers QTBIPoC. They also mentor music students at Give Something Back to Berlin’s Open Music Lab and have a bi-monthly radio show on Refuge Worldwide. MINQ aims to contribute to having their community’s third eye wide open — individually then collectively.
Daddypuss Rex is an intersectional gender terrorist with a big mouth and who isn’t afraid to use it. Based in Berlin, they are a multidisciplinary artist/poet/stand-up comedian and co-producer of the QueerTrans talk show ‘Just The T’. They often use a mix of poetry and humour to navigate topics such as white supremacy, misogynoir, transphobia and general colonial fuckery. With appearances and performances at the Schwules Museum, OWP nights, Isusu Ffena Festival, DICE Forum, CurlCon, Maxim Gorki Theatre, Soho House, Wicked Poetry nights as well as featuring on city-wide podcast and radio shows (Decolonization in Action, Love in the Time of Corona, Tipsy Bear Radio). Most recently, they co-created and facilitated a QueerTrans stand-up comedy workshop as part of the Outreach nGbK Scholarship 2020 (Vermittlungsstipendium nGbK 2020) – their goal is to touch hearts, minds and butts…with active consent! Conversely, by day, Daddypuss Rex is a trauma-informed yoga teacher and founder of Iroko Yoga. Their classes honor both the African (Kemetic) and Vedantic yoga systems and they center BIPOC and Queer/Trans experiences, narratives and bodies of all shapes, sizes and abilities – giving space to practitioners to fully exercise their agency on and off the mat and to joyfully (re)connecting them to their own bodies.
OCEAN the installation and recorded audio will remain accessible to the public until 09.26.
This event is a part of COVEN’s YEAR OF THE BOG.
This event series is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
