In conjunction with the exhibition “Somewhere in Between” at BOZAR, “Variations on Vulnerability” is a slow pace evening of time-based projects that proposes a meditation on the power of vulnerability. In uncertain and challenging times fragility can be a strategy of survival, while rendering vulnerability visible can act as a form of resistance.
Through a series of compositions, musical and dance performances, readings, lectures and roundtables, the event sees artists, curators, and researches propose different narratives and interpretations of vulnerability. It is either through the lens of gender, ethnicity, hybrid bodies or fragile identities that “Variations of Vulnerability” wants to ask its audiences whether or not being vulnerable is also a form of agency.
Taking into account the unstable, precarious situations for independent art systems, especially in our times of rampant populism, “Variations on Vulnerability” sets forth narrative, performative and discursive compositions, which analyse the interstices of what has been done, and what can be done. The event takes a fresh, challenging, extravagant, ponderous and sometimes funny look at vulnerable places, disorder and transborder, with artists, curators and performers using BOZAR’s Rotunda to engage and experience with audiences the broader context of struggles and inequalities in contemporary societies.
By cherishing the development of previous projects, showcases, and symposia on these matters, on the 20th of June “Variations on Vulnerability” also looks to the future of artists’ practices and asks participants to think of the current state of affairs of the independent art scenes, its spaces and its players, from a different perspective.
Curated by: Aria Spinelli and Elena Sorokina
Participants: Seloua Luste Boulbina (keynote), Christine Eyene (keynote), Maria Arusoo (conversation), Alexis Blake (performance), Romuald Demidenko (conversation), Sonia Dermience, Roel Heremans (interactive imagining composition), Karol Radziszewski (conversation), Nataly Kozhuhovskaya (performative lecture), Valentinas Klimašauskas with Marta Trektere and Kaspars Groshevs, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Anni Puolakka and Viktor Viktor Timofeev (Artist readings), Last Yearz Interesting Negro/Jamila Johnson-Small (performance), Jenny Moore (performance), Kiwa Noid (performance), Michal Novotny (conversation), Doireann O'Malley (conversation), Adéla Součková (conversation), Maija Rudovska (conversation), Michaël Van den Abeele (reading), Andros Zins-Browne (reading).
