Conversation with Promona Sengupta, Vassiliea Stylianidou and Venuri Perera, moderated by Aziz Sohail & Suza Husse of The Many Headed Hydra

at the celebration ceremony for the tidal KoHabitat for post-patriarchal futures

29 July, 7 pm

to make our gatherings as safe as possible amidst the ongoing corona virus pandemic, we kindly ask everyone to join with a negative Covid test and wear FFP2 masks when required.

How may we disrupt linear notions of time and space and imagine, make and inhabit new queer pasts and futures? Join us as we discuss perspectives with artists who have been engaging with these ideas within our project especially through ideas of performance and drag, ritual making and deep listening to planetary ecologies.

Franck-Lee Alli-Tis aka Vassiliea Stylianidou studied Literature and Linguistics at the University of Ioannina (GR) and Visual Arts (B.F.A., M.F.A.) at the University of the Arts Berlin. S*he works as a video and installation artist, using in her* works related artistic media such as text, sound/music and performance. Her* work deals with the limits inherent in systems of order and discipline such as architecture, body, power, family, gender and language. Since 2018 s*he is co-curator of the feminist queer project Aphrodite* in Athens. S*he currently works on a book project about language, sexuality and gender. S*he is co-founder of the collective project WordMord. S*he lives and works in Berlin and Athens.

Promona Sengupta is an academic, an activist and a curator based in Berlin. She co-founded Mo’Halla along with Jyothidas KV and Prabhas Tripathy, a pop-up space for progressive art, culture and politics. During her 9 month studio and research grant in the frame of kal she draws inspiration from worldbuilding, science fiction and anticolonial activism to engage in exercises in liberatory speculation. With Speaking Barnacular: Watery Sanctuaries she proposes to look at swimming, flotation and altered states of human consciousness under water as socio-politically rooted practices of dissident history and material culture. In her latest workshops at the House of Kal in Berlin, Promona captained the speculative queer feminist deep space exploration vehicle SS Beben. A shapeshifting, semi-organic ship time-travelling through unknown coordinates, the Beben is co-created by queer feminist makers, activists, artists and curators from Berlin and beyond for purposes of artistic empowerment, rest and joy.

Venuri Perera is a choreographer, performance artist and curator from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her works have dealt with violent nationalism, patriarchy, border rituals, colonial heritage, and class. Her solos and collaborative creations have been shown in Europe, South and East Asia. Since 2017, she has been exploring the power dynamics of gaze, sensuality and anonymity. Currently, she is searching for ways to create conditions for radical love and compassion in her work and life. Although mostly failing, she remains optimistic. She is currently based in Amsterdam and a participant at DAS Theatre.

This conversation is part of the House of Kal Berlin, which unfolds in trans*oceanic correspondences and collaboration with the Houses of Kal Karachi and Colombo.