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NOW + NEW
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Gallery Reflection #4 Protesting Identities with Candice Breitz, Natasha Ginwala, Azadeh Sharifi at ACUD. Photos: Victoria Tomaschko
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Capacity for Character: Fiction, Ethics, and the Anthropology of Conduct. Social Anthropology 26 (3): 345-360.
Drawing on my research on theatre rehearsals, Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale just published an article in which I argue that we should think about the notion of character in the plural, rather than in the singular, as a possible other or further resource of our being and ethical becoming. What I propose therefore is that we can think of characters as dynamic repertoires of actions and traits that allow us to become otherwise; characters in this sense could then be described as creative appropriations of other actions. In order to cultivate character, then, we need, perhaps counterintuitively, to include the idea of detachment from stability, steadiness, singularity and to incorporate a sense of capacity for being other and multiple.
Link to pdf on journal website, on academia, and for direct download.
Drawing on my research on theatre rehearsals, Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale just published an article in which I argue that we should think about the notion of character in the plural, rather than in the singular, as a possible other or further resource of our being and ethical becoming. What I propose therefore is that we can think of characters as dynamic repertoires of actions and traits that allow us to become otherwise; characters in this sense could then be described as creative appropriations of other actions. In order to cultivate character, then, we need, perhaps counterintuitively, to include the idea of detachment from stability, steadiness, singularity and to incorporate a sense of capacity for being other and multiple.
Link to pdf on journal website, on academia, and for direct download.
New Dialogues between Anthropology and Performance Studies (6-11 August 2018), Wenner Gren and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Workshop, Penang (Malaysia)
Just arrived in Penang for six-day workshop ‘New Dialogues between Anthropology and Performance Studies’ (6-11 August) that I’m convening with Prof Tracy Davis (Northwestern) and Prof Lye Tuck-Po (Universiti Sains Malaysia) in Penang National Park’s Center for Marina and Coast Studies (CEMACS). Financed by the The Wenner-Gren Foundation and Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, we want to investigate how performance is mobilized as an embodied locus of ethnographic theorizing and in what ways performance can provide a frame for critical reflections on the challenges of doing ethnography. The entire workshop is structured around five key themes outlined below with sixteen provocation position pieces, expanded and elaborated version of which be publishing the results in a special section of TDR: The Drama Review in due course.
Key Theme I: What do we understand to be the challenges of “doing ethnography” with respect to performance? How is performance mobilized as a participatory and embodied locus of ethnographic theorizing, and how can comparativism help develop new performance theory? (with Tuck Po Lye, Jonas Tinius, Tracy Davis)
Key Theme II: How do different domains of study (e.g. ethnomusicology, dramaturgy, visual anthropology, ritual studies, dance) regard performance constituted as representation and/or artifice in social repertoires? (with Chris Balme, Daniela Hahn, Ric Knowles, Jesse Weaver Shipley)
Key Theme III: What scales and registers of sociality and encounters does the ethnographic study of performance evoke? How does participant observation offer an approach to performance beyond audience- performer dichotomies so that more complex dramaturgies can become evident? (with Karin Barber, Julius Bautista, Yeoh Seng-Guan, Georgina Born)
Key Theme IV: Like performance, ethnographic documentation addresses the tension between ephemerality and durability. Diana Taylor (2003) theorizes the co-extensive concepts of “archive” and “repertoire” to reflect how cultural endeavors that are no longer practised are related to what persists through ongoing embodied practices via movement, music, speech, etc. What are the consequences of ethnographers’ and performers’ documentation of such “acts of transfer” for performance, interpretation, and perpetuity? (with Khadija Zinnenburg Carroll, Damani Partridge, Paul Rae, Katarina Kleinschmidt)
Key Theme V: What kinds of collecting protocols, exhibitions, or displays may we need—or how can we rethink existing one —to reflect the foregoing themes? How might we repurpose or “re-do” institutions (such as archives, theatres, or museums) as sites of inquiry, dissemination of research, and “‘shared’ heritage”? (with Jazmin Llana, Peter Marx, Katerina Teaiwa)
Just arrived in Penang for six-day workshop ‘New Dialogues between Anthropology and Performance Studies’ (6-11 August) that I’m convening with Prof Tracy Davis (Northwestern) and Prof Lye Tuck-Po (Universiti Sains Malaysia) in Penang National Park’s Center for Marina and Coast Studies (CEMACS). Financed by the The Wenner-Gren Foundation and Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, we want to investigate how performance is mobilized as an embodied locus of ethnographic theorizing and in what ways performance can provide a frame for critical reflections on the challenges of doing ethnography. The entire workshop is structured around five key themes outlined below with sixteen provocation position pieces, expanded and elaborated version of which be publishing the results in a special section of TDR: The Drama Review in due course.
Key Theme I: What do we understand to be the challenges of “doing ethnography” with respect to performance? How is performance mobilized as a participatory and embodied locus of ethnographic theorizing, and how can comparativism help develop new performance theory? (with Tuck Po Lye, Jonas Tinius, Tracy Davis)
Key Theme II: How do different domains of study (e.g. ethnomusicology, dramaturgy, visual anthropology, ritual studies, dance) regard performance constituted as representation and/or artifice in social repertoires? (with Chris Balme, Daniela Hahn, Ric Knowles, Jesse Weaver Shipley)
Key Theme III: What scales and registers of sociality and encounters does the ethnographic study of performance evoke? How does participant observation offer an approach to performance beyond audience- performer dichotomies so that more complex dramaturgies can become evident? (with Karin Barber, Julius Bautista, Yeoh Seng-Guan, Georgina Born)
Key Theme IV: Like performance, ethnographic documentation addresses the tension between ephemerality and durability. Diana Taylor (2003) theorizes the co-extensive concepts of “archive” and “repertoire” to reflect how cultural endeavors that are no longer practised are related to what persists through ongoing embodied practices via movement, music, speech, etc. What are the consequences of ethnographers’ and performers’ documentation of such “acts of transfer” for performance, interpretation, and perpetuity? (with Khadija Zinnenburg Carroll, Damani Partridge, Paul Rae, Katarina Kleinschmidt)
Key Theme V: What kinds of collecting protocols, exhibitions, or displays may we need—or how can we rethink existing one —to reflect the foregoing themes? How might we repurpose or “re-do” institutions (such as archives, theatres, or museums) as sites of inquiry, dissemination of research, and “‘shared’ heritage”? (with Jazmin Llana, Peter Marx, Katerina Teaiwa)
Marilyn Strathern CARMAH Lecture - now available as podcast
We finally uploaded Marilyn Strathern's CARMAH lecture 'Transformational relations: transplantation and metamorphosis' on our podcast platform. This lecture was held in the context of the colloquium series 'Conjunctures and Creations: Anthropological Transformations/Transformations of Anthropology', jointly organised by CARMAH and the Institute of European Ethnology (Humboldt University, Berlin) on 29 May 2018
This paper imagines two interrelated modes of thinking about transformation and thus about the transformation of disciplines. It considers ways in which anthropology is already transforming itself, and turns the question about what is anthropological into one about what kind of future we may conjure up for a subject that refers to itself in the plural (‘anthropologies’). That sense of internal multiplicity also raises questions at the heart of the collaborative languages that we speak. An example is given in the emphasis that English-speaking anthropology puts on the concept of relations.
https://hearthis.at/carmah-hu/strathern-lecture29052018/
We finally uploaded Marilyn Strathern's CARMAH lecture 'Transformational relations: transplantation and metamorphosis' on our podcast platform. This lecture was held in the context of the colloquium series 'Conjunctures and Creations: Anthropological Transformations/Transformations of Anthropology', jointly organised by CARMAH and the Institute of European Ethnology (Humboldt University, Berlin) on 29 May 2018
This paper imagines two interrelated modes of thinking about transformation and thus about the transformation of disciplines. It considers ways in which anthropology is already transforming itself, and turns the question about what is anthropological into one about what kind of future we may conjure up for a subject that refers to itself in the plural (‘anthropologies’). That sense of internal multiplicity also raises questions at the heart of the collaborative languages that we speak. An example is given in the emphasis that English-speaking anthropology puts on the concept of relations.
https://hearthis.at/carmah-hu/strathern-lecture29052018/
Report on two-day workshop "Exchanging perspectives: anthropologies, museum collections and colonial legacies between Paris and Berlin" in June 2018 at HKW and CARMAH
Margareta von Oswald, Felicity Bodenstein, and Callum Fisher wrote a report for the HUMBOLDT blog on the three-day work shop: Exchanging perspectives: anthropologies, museum collections and colonial legacies between Paris and Berlin (June 6-8, 2018) held at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) and at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). We presented on recent developments concerning ethnological museums and collections, and the political and curatorial practices concerning German colonialism.
https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-humboldt/from-the-brothers-humboldt-to-jacques-chirac-and-back/
Margareta von Oswald, Felicity Bodenstein, and Callum Fisher wrote a report for the HUMBOLDT blog on the three-day work shop: Exchanging perspectives: anthropologies, museum collections and colonial legacies between Paris and Berlin (June 6-8, 2018) held at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) and at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). We presented on recent developments concerning ethnological museums and collections, and the political and curatorial practices concerning German colonialism.
https://blog.uni-koeln.de/gssc-humboldt/from-the-brothers-humboldt-to-jacques-chirac-and-back/
CARMAH PAPERS #1 Otherwise. Rethinking Museums and Heritage. Open-access publication now freely available on our website.
We have now published an edited volume containing essays after last year’s conference on rethinking museums and heritage. My contribution is based on a panel with Alya Sebti, Katharina Schramm/Greer Valley, and Henrietta Lidchi, and I am discussing, among other things, concepts developed by Bonaventure Ndikung and artworks by Emeka Ogboh. Limited number of hard copies also available but the main purpose is open-access distribution. So feel free to share with anyone interested!
Other essays contain discussions of provenance (based on conversation with Ciraj Rasool, Paul Basu, and Britta Lange), Translocality (based on conversation with Beverley Butler, Banu Karaca and Paola Ivanov), Post-Ethnological (based on panel with Clementine Deliss and Dan Hicks), and Engagement (based on panel with Bonita Bennett, Ute Marxreiter, and Laura Peers).
Link for download and more information on the conference: http://www.carmah.berlin/events/otherwise2017/
We have now published an edited volume containing essays after last year’s conference on rethinking museums and heritage. My contribution is based on a panel with Alya Sebti, Katharina Schramm/Greer Valley, and Henrietta Lidchi, and I am discussing, among other things, concepts developed by Bonaventure Ndikung and artworks by Emeka Ogboh. Limited number of hard copies also available but the main purpose is open-access distribution. So feel free to share with anyone interested!
Other essays contain discussions of provenance (based on conversation with Ciraj Rasool, Paul Basu, and Britta Lange), Translocality (based on conversation with Beverley Butler, Banu Karaca and Paola Ivanov), Post-Ethnological (based on panel with Clementine Deliss and Dan Hicks), and Engagement (based on panel with Bonita Bennett, Ute Marxreiter, and Laura Peers).
Link for download and more information on the conference: http://www.carmah.berlin/events/otherwise2017/
'Transforming Darkness'. Feature on online podcast platform. Konsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark.
“Transforming Darkness” is a nicely-designed podcast platform developed by Carsten Ortman in conjunction with Kirstine Roepstorff's exhibit; Renaissance of the Night at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen. Very happy to feature with my tuppence alongside wonderful Solvej Helweg Ovesen, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, and many other inspiring figures including dancers, musicians, art historians, philosophers, astrophysicists etc. Kirstine, Solvej and I also did an interview on their Venice Biennale project for Mousse Magazine titled “The Porosity of Darkness”. Check out the website and click on the star zodiac sign symbol to listen to my contribution.
“Transforming Darkness” is a nicely-designed podcast platform developed by Carsten Ortman in conjunction with Kirstine Roepstorff's exhibit; Renaissance of the Night at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen. Very happy to feature with my tuppence alongside wonderful Solvej Helweg Ovesen, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, and many other inspiring figures including dancers, musicians, art historians, philosophers, astrophysicists etc. Kirstine, Solvej and I also did an interview on their Venice Biennale project for Mousse Magazine titled “The Porosity of Darkness”. Check out the website and click on the star zodiac sign symbol to listen to my contribution.
Dismantling Neo-Empire: Asia/Pacific & Co-Constituting the Global. Workshops at HKW/ICI, Berlin, 21-22 June 2018
On Thursday, 21 June 2018 I will be moderating a session on 'The Humboldt Forum and Global Engagements', which raises questions about the role of contemporary art in this contentious museum and heritage project. Particular focus is on the Museum of Asian Art.
Contextualizing global art and cultural collections require a rethinking of the long history of colonial empire and the Asia Pacific and current asymmetries of power, including institutionalized power, in relation to the rational and contextualization of provenance, cultural heritage, preservation, and presentation. This working session’s presentations and discussions hope to think together with international scholars, curators, artists, and community leaders about issues of the long histories of empire to present day modes of empire in relation to narratives, curation, and collections, as well as art practice.
Working sessions and public panels organised by Annette Bhagwati, Alexandra Chang, Birgit Hopfener, and Ming Tiampo in collaboration with House of World Cultures (HKW), ICI Berlin, Centre for Transcultural Analysis at Carleton University, and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU. ---> Link to Programme (pdf)
On Thursday, 21 June 2018 I will be moderating a session on 'The Humboldt Forum and Global Engagements', which raises questions about the role of contemporary art in this contentious museum and heritage project. Particular focus is on the Museum of Asian Art.
Contextualizing global art and cultural collections require a rethinking of the long history of colonial empire and the Asia Pacific and current asymmetries of power, including institutionalized power, in relation to the rational and contextualization of provenance, cultural heritage, preservation, and presentation. This working session’s presentations and discussions hope to think together with international scholars, curators, artists, and community leaders about issues of the long histories of empire to present day modes of empire in relation to narratives, curation, and collections, as well as art practice.
Working sessions and public panels organised by Annette Bhagwati, Alexandra Chang, Birgit Hopfener, and Ming Tiampo in collaboration with House of World Cultures (HKW), ICI Berlin, Centre for Transcultural Analysis at Carleton University, and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU. ---> Link to Programme (pdf)
'Anthropologisch forschen/denken/schreiben in Kunst'. Master-Studiengang Vorlesung, Uni Hildesheim, 13 Juni 2018
"Anthropologisch denken/arbeiten/schreiben in/mit/durch Kunst: Ethnografische Annäherungen an Theater und kuratorische Arbeit". Tongue-in-cheek title for lecture I gave again at Hildesheim seminar on artistic research led by Mieke Matzke and Matthias Rebstock this Wednesday - will be talking about RUHRORTER, Galerie Wedding - Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst, art.ifa, and SAVVY Contemporary. Mehr Informationen --> hier.
"Anthropologisch denken/arbeiten/schreiben in/mit/durch Kunst: Ethnografische Annäherungen an Theater und kuratorische Arbeit". Tongue-in-cheek title for lecture I gave again at Hildesheim seminar on artistic research led by Mieke Matzke and Matthias Rebstock this Wednesday - will be talking about RUHRORTER, Galerie Wedding - Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst, art.ifa, and SAVVY Contemporary. Mehr Informationen --> hier.
Conjunctures and Creations. Anthropological Transformations / Transforming Anthropology. Department Seminar SS 2018
This colloquium addresses anthropological transformations and transformations of anthropology. What is the place of conjunctures and creations in anthropological practice? We seek to discuss these issues of transformation in relation to disciplinary attachments and detachments, challenges, and tensions. With talks by Natalie Bayer, Aihwa One, Marilyn Strathern, Andrew Irving, Gareth Doherty, and others.
Organisers: Jonas Tinius, Tahani Nadim, Sharon Macdonald
Summer Semester 2018. Weekly Department Seminar
CARMAH & Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
More information: www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de / www.carmah.berlin
This colloquium addresses anthropological transformations and transformations of anthropology. What is the place of conjunctures and creations in anthropological practice? We seek to discuss these issues of transformation in relation to disciplinary attachments and detachments, challenges, and tensions. With talks by Natalie Bayer, Aihwa One, Marilyn Strathern, Andrew Irving, Gareth Doherty, and others.
Organisers: Jonas Tinius, Tahani Nadim, Sharon Macdonald
Summer Semester 2018. Weekly Department Seminar
CARMAH & Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
More information: www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de / www.carmah.berlin
Three-day workshop on anthropologies, museum collections and colonial legacies in Paris and Berlin, HKW, 6-8 June 2018, Berlin Together with my colleagues Larissa Förster and Margareta von Oswald, we presented our preliminary research findings on the negotiation of colonial legacies in Berlin's museum, heritage, and contemporary art debates at three-day workshop organised by Centre for Anthropological Research and Museums and Heritage (CARMAH), House of World Cultures, and CIERA. On day one, CARMAH hosted presentations on provenance, ethnographic transformations, and institutional genealogies. On day two, we visited the HKW exhibition on Carl Einstein (Neolithic Childhood), and on day three, we are hosted by the HKW to talk about representations of anthropological thought and -history in and through current archiving and exhibition practices.
Contemporary Art and the Ethnographic Museum, Panel at Royal Anthropological Institute Major Conference at British Museum & SOAS, 1-3 June 2018
This last weekend, I co-convened a panel with my colleague Margareta von Oswald. Abstract and info below: Interactions between ethnographic museums and contemporary art have been contentious – appropriative and short-lived for some, a creative and necessary way forward for others. This panel investigates the manifold possibilities, histories, and possible futures of this relation. Presentations by Dr Amelia Correa (University of Copenhagen), Prof Silvy Chakkalakal (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Dr Lisa Newby, Saskia Köbschall (SAVVY Contemporary), Prof Arnd Schneider (Oslo), Lili Reyels (Associated via “Humboldt Lab Tanzania” with Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz); Sarita Lydia Mamseri; Paola Ivanov (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin); Kristin Weber-Sinn (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin), Vibe Nielsen (Copenhagen), Pratyaksha Rajawat, Maarin Ektermann; Mary-Ann Talvistu (KuKo, Tallinn), Tal Adler (Humboldt University Berlin), and Sylvia Cockburn (University of East Anglia)
Convenors: Jonas Tinius (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin); Margareta von Oswald (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) @ British Museum on Sun 3rd June, 09:00-10:30, 11:00-12:30, 13:30-15:00, 15:30-17:00 --> Panel information with all papers here.
This last weekend, I co-convened a panel with my colleague Margareta von Oswald. Abstract and info below: Interactions between ethnographic museums and contemporary art have been contentious – appropriative and short-lived for some, a creative and necessary way forward for others. This panel investigates the manifold possibilities, histories, and possible futures of this relation. Presentations by Dr Amelia Correa (University of Copenhagen), Prof Silvy Chakkalakal (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Dr Lisa Newby, Saskia Köbschall (SAVVY Contemporary), Prof Arnd Schneider (Oslo), Lili Reyels (Associated via “Humboldt Lab Tanzania” with Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz); Sarita Lydia Mamseri; Paola Ivanov (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin); Kristin Weber-Sinn (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin), Vibe Nielsen (Copenhagen), Pratyaksha Rajawat, Maarin Ektermann; Mary-Ann Talvistu (KuKo, Tallinn), Tal Adler (Humboldt University Berlin), and Sylvia Cockburn (University of East Anglia)
Convenors: Jonas Tinius (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin); Margareta von Oswald (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) @ British Museum on Sun 3rd June, 09:00-10:30, 11:00-12:30, 13:30-15:00, 15:30-17:00 --> Panel information with all papers here.
RUHRORTER: Theatre Premiere, Reading, and post-Heimat Working Meetings at Munich Kammerspiele in May/June 2018
On 30 May, RUHRORTER is premiering INMITTEN DER DUNKELHEIT RIEF ICH DICH (in the midst of darkness, I called you) - a performance engaging with the orphic myth,memory, and loss. The play takes place in an abandoned shop on Mülheim's high street, and will be performed by: Mohammad Dahdal, Alaa Alarsan, Omar Mohamad, Militan Alo, Mohammad Saad Kharouf, Raghad Al-Khatib, Yazan Abo Hassoun.
On 1 June, following the second premiere, we are also organising a reading with Syrian poet Lina Atfah, who fled the Assad regime as an adolescent. The reading will be in Arabic and German. Her German translations will be read by Theater an der Ruhr actress Maria Neumann. Atfah's latest publication is Deine Angst – Dein Paradies. Gedichte aus Syrien (2018).
Please also take note of our symposium POST-HEIMAT in collaboration with the Münchner Kammerspiele. This three-day working meeting brings together artists, performers, producers, and scholars to talk about diversity and migration and how to create a sustainable long-term conversation on these issues at the level of federal cultural politics. We are joined, among others, by representatives of the boat people projekt, Hajusom, Maxim Gorki Theater, Collective Ma'louba, Pavillon Hannover, and schauspielhannover as well as Prof Christopher Balme, Özlem Canyürek, Ruba Totah, Carola Unser, Julian Warner and others
More information: www.ruhrorter.com
On 30 May, RUHRORTER is premiering INMITTEN DER DUNKELHEIT RIEF ICH DICH (in the midst of darkness, I called you) - a performance engaging with the orphic myth,memory, and loss. The play takes place in an abandoned shop on Mülheim's high street, and will be performed by: Mohammad Dahdal, Alaa Alarsan, Omar Mohamad, Militan Alo, Mohammad Saad Kharouf, Raghad Al-Khatib, Yazan Abo Hassoun.
On 1 June, following the second premiere, we are also organising a reading with Syrian poet Lina Atfah, who fled the Assad regime as an adolescent. The reading will be in Arabic and German. Her German translations will be read by Theater an der Ruhr actress Maria Neumann. Atfah's latest publication is Deine Angst – Dein Paradies. Gedichte aus Syrien (2018).
Please also take note of our symposium POST-HEIMAT in collaboration with the Münchner Kammerspiele. This three-day working meeting brings together artists, performers, producers, and scholars to talk about diversity and migration and how to create a sustainable long-term conversation on these issues at the level of federal cultural politics. We are joined, among others, by representatives of the boat people projekt, Hajusom, Maxim Gorki Theater, Collective Ma'louba, Pavillon Hannover, and schauspielhannover as well as Prof Christopher Balme, Özlem Canyürek, Ruba Totah, Carola Unser, Julian Warner and others
More information: www.ruhrorter.com
Anthropologie, exorcisme, et tourisme. Horizons critiques. Musée du Quai Branly, 25-26 May 2018, Paris
On Thursday, I will be presenting a paper on the mediation and mediatisation of Humboldt and the translation of colonial exploration into a commodified form of Wanderlust in the context of the public reception of the Berlin Humboldt Forum. This is part of a conference organised by Frederic Keck, Rupert Stasch, Julien Clement, Nicolas Garnier, and Aurelie Condevaux in conjunction with an exhibition at the museum. Both problematise constructions of otherness and exoticism. My abstract is below.
Mediating Wanderlust: Exoticism, Exploration, and the Public Humboldt Forum
On the north-eastern tip of Berlin’s famous museum island, Germany’s most contested cultural project is nearing completion: the Humboldt Forum. Framed by a reconstructed feudal architecture of the Hohenzollern dynasty, it aspires to be not just the city’s, but indeed Germany’s principal « international dialogue platform for global ideas » of non-European heritage. Amidst heavy criticism from civil rights organisations, postcolonial activists, and contemporary artists, the Forum clings to mediating its popular Humboldtian vision and version of exploration as a form of curious wanderlust. This paper traces some of the developments of how the Humboldt Forum and its constituent partners mediate and seek to popularise visions of the two Humboldt brothers as visionary explorers, rather than exoticising colonialists. Further, I shall be examining the tension between popular material tourist culture, new media and technological projections of the project’s visions of non-European heritage, and postcolonial challenges levelled against these. This talk draws on multi-researcher fieldwork conducted as part of the Centre for Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at the Humboldt-University in Berlin.
Programme and more information here.
On Thursday, I will be presenting a paper on the mediation and mediatisation of Humboldt and the translation of colonial exploration into a commodified form of Wanderlust in the context of the public reception of the Berlin Humboldt Forum. This is part of a conference organised by Frederic Keck, Rupert Stasch, Julien Clement, Nicolas Garnier, and Aurelie Condevaux in conjunction with an exhibition at the museum. Both problematise constructions of otherness and exoticism. My abstract is below.
Mediating Wanderlust: Exoticism, Exploration, and the Public Humboldt Forum
On the north-eastern tip of Berlin’s famous museum island, Germany’s most contested cultural project is nearing completion: the Humboldt Forum. Framed by a reconstructed feudal architecture of the Hohenzollern dynasty, it aspires to be not just the city’s, but indeed Germany’s principal « international dialogue platform for global ideas » of non-European heritage. Amidst heavy criticism from civil rights organisations, postcolonial activists, and contemporary artists, the Forum clings to mediating its popular Humboldtian vision and version of exploration as a form of curious wanderlust. This paper traces some of the developments of how the Humboldt Forum and its constituent partners mediate and seek to popularise visions of the two Humboldt brothers as visionary explorers, rather than exoticising colonialists. Further, I shall be examining the tension between popular material tourist culture, new media and technological projections of the project’s visions of non-European heritage, and postcolonial challenges levelled against these. This talk draws on multi-researcher fieldwork conducted as part of the Centre for Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at the Humboldt-University in Berlin.
Programme and more information here.
PublicDemos Presentation, EHESS, Paris, 18 May 2018
On Friday, I'll be giving an invited paper entitled "‘"In the midst of darkness, I called you" (Orpheus): Interstitial agency and postmigrant theatre in Germany’ for Prof Nilüfer Göle's international study group on Artistic Expressions and Aesthetic Styles in Public Spaces (PUBLIC DEMOS)
The PublicDemoS Project explores the ways in which new forms of public agency extend politics to everyday life experiences, opening up avenues of artistic expressions and aesthetic forms. The core aim of this project is to renew democratic agendas by politics of performative citizenship and public making in multicultural settings.
More information: www.ehess.fr/fr/publicdemos-public-space-democracy & workshop programme as pdf available here
On Friday, I'll be giving an invited paper entitled "‘"In the midst of darkness, I called you" (Orpheus): Interstitial agency and postmigrant theatre in Germany’ for Prof Nilüfer Göle's international study group on Artistic Expressions and Aesthetic Styles in Public Spaces (PUBLIC DEMOS)
The PublicDemoS Project explores the ways in which new forms of public agency extend politics to everyday life experiences, opening up avenues of artistic expressions and aesthetic forms. The core aim of this project is to renew democratic agendas by politics of performative citizenship and public making in multicultural settings.
More information: www.ehess.fr/fr/publicdemos-public-space-democracy & workshop programme as pdf available here
Gallery Reflection #5 Anthropology, Vulnerability, and Curatorial Practice, ifa-Gallery Berlin, 16 May 7pm
A Conversation between Alya Sebti (director, ifa Gallery Berlin) and Jonas Tinius (anthropologist, HU Berlin). For this encounter, Alya Sebti and Jonas Tinius speak about the institutionalisation and destabilisation of curatorial and anthropological practices. Highlighting and concluding the Gallery Reflections series initiated in 2016, they are also addressing the complexities of creating such an exchange within the space of an institution itself. This dialogue within the Untie to Tie programme links On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies (2017–18) to the upcoming section Movement.Bewegung (2018–19), for which Jonas Tinius will be coordinating a series of encounters on migration and movement entitled “All is in flux, nothing stands still”.
https://www.contemporaryand.com/exhibition/interloop-knowledge-transfers-practices-reflections-perspectives/
A Conversation between Alya Sebti (director, ifa Gallery Berlin) and Jonas Tinius (anthropologist, HU Berlin). For this encounter, Alya Sebti and Jonas Tinius speak about the institutionalisation and destabilisation of curatorial and anthropological practices. Highlighting and concluding the Gallery Reflections series initiated in 2016, they are also addressing the complexities of creating such an exchange within the space of an institution itself. This dialogue within the Untie to Tie programme links On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies (2017–18) to the upcoming section Movement.Bewegung (2018–19), for which Jonas Tinius will be coordinating a series of encounters on migration and movement entitled “All is in flux, nothing stands still”.
https://www.contemporaryand.com/exhibition/interloop-knowledge-transfers-practices-reflections-perspectives/
Masterclass and Evening Lecture by Prof Aihwa Ong (Anthropology, Berkeley, California), 8 May 2017 at CARMAH (HU Berlin)
On Tuesday, 8 May 2018, as part of our weekly colloquium series organised by CARMAH/Institute of European Ethnology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, we are excited to host Prof Aihwa Ong (Anthropology, Berkeley, California). She will be giving a two-day masterclass for early career researchers on her career in anthropology and approach to theory-work. On the evening of 8 May, she will also be giving a public evening lecture entitled 'Distributed Sovereignty: Better Inroads into Southeast Asia'. More information on: www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/institut/kolloquium
ABSTRACT: China's "One Belt, One Road" policy was introduced by invoking the ancient Silk Road and the 15th century Admiral Zheng He's voyages to Southeast Asia and Africa. My talk dives below the cloud of imagery that surrounds this 21st century Chinese opening to the world. I view the mega-infrastructure as a mode of ruling beyond the state that has de- and re-territorializing effects abroad. As an assemblage of technology, capital, and politics, the Maritime Silk Roadintervenes into an existing landscape of fragmentation and instability in Southeast Asia. By engineering and financing roads, railways, ports and zones, the Silk Road enhances circulations of trade as well as the incorporation and shared administration of multiple sites and diverse subjects in multiple sites. Besides material interconnectivity, political exceptions and a graduated form of sovereignty at many points help configure an emerging topology. The Silk Road has been branded as an umbrella that shelters small countries under the "liberal global order," but it can also be analyzed as an octopus that exercises a form of distributed sovereignty.
On Tuesday, 8 May 2018, as part of our weekly colloquium series organised by CARMAH/Institute of European Ethnology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, we are excited to host Prof Aihwa Ong (Anthropology, Berkeley, California). She will be giving a two-day masterclass for early career researchers on her career in anthropology and approach to theory-work. On the evening of 8 May, she will also be giving a public evening lecture entitled 'Distributed Sovereignty: Better Inroads into Southeast Asia'. More information on: www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/institut/kolloquium
ABSTRACT: China's "One Belt, One Road" policy was introduced by invoking the ancient Silk Road and the 15th century Admiral Zheng He's voyages to Southeast Asia and Africa. My talk dives below the cloud of imagery that surrounds this 21st century Chinese opening to the world. I view the mega-infrastructure as a mode of ruling beyond the state that has de- and re-territorializing effects abroad. As an assemblage of technology, capital, and politics, the Maritime Silk Roadintervenes into an existing landscape of fragmentation and instability in Southeast Asia. By engineering and financing roads, railways, ports and zones, the Silk Road enhances circulations of trade as well as the incorporation and shared administration of multiple sites and diverse subjects in multiple sites. Besides material interconnectivity, political exceptions and a graduated form of sovereignty at many points help configure an emerging topology. The Silk Road has been branded as an umbrella that shelters small countries under the "liberal global order," but it can also be analyzed as an octopus that exercises a form of distributed sovereignty.
Bericht Jahrestagung 2017 »Diversitätsentwicklung in Kulturinstitutionen« des Landesverband der Museen zu Berlin
Die Jahrestagung 2017 fand zum Thema »Diversitätsentwicklung in Kulturinstitutionen« am 20. November 2017 im Märkischen Museum statt. Das Programm wurde gemeinsam mit DIVERSITY. ARTS. CULTURE - Berliner Projektbüro für Diversitätsentwicklung erarbeitet.
Dazu gibt es einen Bericht mit Diskussion meines Beitrags.. Daraus: "Im folgenden Vortrag »Das Problem der Diversität. Re exionen aus der anthropologischen Forschungspraxis« sprach Dr. Jonas Tinius vom Centre for Anthropological Research on Museum and Heritage (CARMAH) am Institut für Europäi- sche Ethnologie der Humboldt Universität Berlin zum Punkt Programm die Problematiken der Positionalität, der Intersektionalität und der nach- haltigen institutionellen Re exion der eigenen Praxis an. Tinius konzentrierte sich auf Erfahrungen und Beispiele aus seiner kollaborativen anthropologisch-kuratorischen Forschung in drei Kulturinstitutionen (ifa-Galerie, SAVVY Contem- porary und Galerie Wedding)."
Bericht als PDF hier: https://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/media/uploads/lmb_jahrestagung_2017.pdf
Die Jahrestagung 2017 fand zum Thema »Diversitätsentwicklung in Kulturinstitutionen« am 20. November 2017 im Märkischen Museum statt. Das Programm wurde gemeinsam mit DIVERSITY. ARTS. CULTURE - Berliner Projektbüro für Diversitätsentwicklung erarbeitet.
Dazu gibt es einen Bericht mit Diskussion meines Beitrags.. Daraus: "Im folgenden Vortrag »Das Problem der Diversität. Re exionen aus der anthropologischen Forschungspraxis« sprach Dr. Jonas Tinius vom Centre for Anthropological Research on Museum and Heritage (CARMAH) am Institut für Europäi- sche Ethnologie der Humboldt Universität Berlin zum Punkt Programm die Problematiken der Positionalität, der Intersektionalität und der nach- haltigen institutionellen Re exion der eigenen Praxis an. Tinius konzentrierte sich auf Erfahrungen und Beispiele aus seiner kollaborativen anthropologisch-kuratorischen Forschung in drei Kulturinstitutionen (ifa-Galerie, SAVVY Contem- porary und Galerie Wedding)."
Bericht als PDF hier: https://www.museumsportal-berlin.de/media/uploads/lmb_jahrestagung_2017.pdf
'Buddha'. Score by Julius Eastman, 1984.
CfP 'Time and tradition: theorising the temporalities in and of cultural production' (ASA 2018 Oxford with Prof Georgina Born)
Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK (ASA)
18-21 September 2018, University of Oxford, UK
Call for papers closes on 20 April
Convenors
Jonas Tinius (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
& Georgina Born (University of Oxford)
Short abstract
How is time configured in processes of artistic and cultural production? And what does this tell us about ideas of history, tradition, and imagination? This panel invites papers that theorise the multiple temporalities of creative practices across the arts, music, and cultural production.
Long abstract
From the project temporalities of freelance artistic labour, to the microsocial temporalities of performance, improvisation or studio practices, to the longue durŽe of cultural heritage traditions, variable forms of time and temporality are evoked and produced in processes of cultural production. Drawing on diverse ethnographic contexts, this panel expands on anthropological theorisations of time and transformation by drawing on fieldwork exploring the temporalities of artistic, musical, and cultural processes. We wish to highlight the need to analyse the multiplicity of conceptions and enactments of time in cultural processes, taking seriously the contributions of the arts and music to the production and theorization of time. Art and music have a dual quality: they are situated within ongoing historical processes, but they also produce time in diverse ways. Rather than dwelling on analyses of particular artistic practices and their ephemerality, or on conceptions of heritage and deep time, we aim to highlight how the study of multiple temporalities in artistic and cultural production can inform our understanding of history, tradition, and imagination more generally and feed back into core discussions in the anthropology of time and cultural history. We invite papers from any ethnographic context to address the following questions raised by theme 4 (transformation and time): How does time figure in imaginative and artistic processes? How are pasts and futures articulated through material and aesthetic practices? How are institutions involved in canonizing the past, preserving the present or promoting change? How can aesthetics be thought anew in relation to temporal processes?
Propose a paper:
https://tinyurl.com/y9qt5nvs
Panel info:
https://tinyurl.com/ybrjqcea
Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK (ASA)
18-21 September 2018, University of Oxford, UK
Call for papers closes on 20 April
Convenors
Jonas Tinius (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
& Georgina Born (University of Oxford)
Short abstract
How is time configured in processes of artistic and cultural production? And what does this tell us about ideas of history, tradition, and imagination? This panel invites papers that theorise the multiple temporalities of creative practices across the arts, music, and cultural production.
Long abstract
From the project temporalities of freelance artistic labour, to the microsocial temporalities of performance, improvisation or studio practices, to the longue durŽe of cultural heritage traditions, variable forms of time and temporality are evoked and produced in processes of cultural production. Drawing on diverse ethnographic contexts, this panel expands on anthropological theorisations of time and transformation by drawing on fieldwork exploring the temporalities of artistic, musical, and cultural processes. We wish to highlight the need to analyse the multiplicity of conceptions and enactments of time in cultural processes, taking seriously the contributions of the arts and music to the production and theorization of time. Art and music have a dual quality: they are situated within ongoing historical processes, but they also produce time in diverse ways. Rather than dwelling on analyses of particular artistic practices and their ephemerality, or on conceptions of heritage and deep time, we aim to highlight how the study of multiple temporalities in artistic and cultural production can inform our understanding of history, tradition, and imagination more generally and feed back into core discussions in the anthropology of time and cultural history. We invite papers from any ethnographic context to address the following questions raised by theme 4 (transformation and time): How does time figure in imaginative and artistic processes? How are pasts and futures articulated through material and aesthetic practices? How are institutions involved in canonizing the past, preserving the present or promoting change? How can aesthetics be thought anew in relation to temporal processes?
Propose a paper:
https://tinyurl.com/y9qt5nvs
Panel info:
https://tinyurl.com/ybrjqcea
Art and Nativism [Anthropology and the Arts Network Panel], EASA2018, 14-17 August, Stockholm/Sweden
On behalf of the Anthropology and the Arts Network, Roger Sansi (Universitat de Barcelona) and I will be convening a panel entitled ART AND NATIVISM at the upcoming 2018 conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, taking place 14-17 August in Stockholm, Sweden. The Call for Papers closes on 9 April. You can find more information on the panel and how to propose your paper via the following link: https://nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2018/conferencesuite.php/panels/6521
Abstract
Over the last years, we have been witnessing a growth (and return) of nativist populist political movements across the globe. These movements react against perceived threats of globalisation, migration, and foreign influence. Art is central to nativism. Like any political movement, nativism needs to perform and represent itself, to create images, myths, and rituals. The objective of this panel is to address the intersection of art and nativism.While anthropologists have studied nativism for a long time (Linton 1940), they have mostly been concerned with ´minority' and 'native' populations whose cultural practices and societies were perceived to be under threat from, usually, Euro-American colonial and capitalist populations. Nowadays, paradoxically, nativist movements are spreading amongst the very white Euro-American populations that in the past were threatening these other 'native' societies. However, even if nativism today is commonly associated with anti-immigration right-wing movements, left-wing anti-globalisation movements also mobilise nativist arguments.
This panel proposes to think about nativism through art. Activist art has been associated with left-wing, liberal, and cosmopolitan politics, in theory the opposite of nativism, but often cosmopolitan art has been fascinated with native, minority, and "local" politics ("the ethnographic turn") in opposition to globalisation. But what is the relation between activist art and decolonial indigenous movements today? And new European nationalist movements? How do artistic practices intervene in the tense relation between migration, nativism, and citizenship; staying, moving, and settling? We invite papers from any ethnographic context willing to address these questions boldly and without prejudice.
On behalf of the Anthropology and the Arts Network, Roger Sansi (Universitat de Barcelona) and I will be convening a panel entitled ART AND NATIVISM at the upcoming 2018 conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, taking place 14-17 August in Stockholm, Sweden. The Call for Papers closes on 9 April. You can find more information on the panel and how to propose your paper via the following link: https://nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2018/conferencesuite.php/panels/6521
Abstract
Over the last years, we have been witnessing a growth (and return) of nativist populist political movements across the globe. These movements react against perceived threats of globalisation, migration, and foreign influence. Art is central to nativism. Like any political movement, nativism needs to perform and represent itself, to create images, myths, and rituals. The objective of this panel is to address the intersection of art and nativism.While anthropologists have studied nativism for a long time (Linton 1940), they have mostly been concerned with ´minority' and 'native' populations whose cultural practices and societies were perceived to be under threat from, usually, Euro-American colonial and capitalist populations. Nowadays, paradoxically, nativist movements are spreading amongst the very white Euro-American populations that in the past were threatening these other 'native' societies. However, even if nativism today is commonly associated with anti-immigration right-wing movements, left-wing anti-globalisation movements also mobilise nativist arguments.
This panel proposes to think about nativism through art. Activist art has been associated with left-wing, liberal, and cosmopolitan politics, in theory the opposite of nativism, but often cosmopolitan art has been fascinated with native, minority, and "local" politics ("the ethnographic turn") in opposition to globalisation. But what is the relation between activist art and decolonial indigenous movements today? And new European nationalist movements? How do artistic practices intervene in the tense relation between migration, nativism, and citizenship; staying, moving, and settling? We invite papers from any ethnographic context willing to address these questions boldly and without prejudice.
Paperback release: Anthropology, Theatre, and Development (edited with Alex Flynn, Palgrave, 2015)
Very happy that the book Alex Ungprateeb Flynn and I edited back in 2015 is now out in paperback. Nice to be reminded of thought-provoking discussions in Manchester, Durham, and elsewhere with Jane Plastow, Jeff Juris, Rafael Schacter, Nick Long, Caroline Gatt, Rolf Hemke, Milo Rau, Catherine Schuler, Clare Foster, Stavroula Pypyrou, Dan Baron.
Anthropology, Theatre, and Development:
The Transformative Potential of Performance (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
From Pussy Riot and the Arab Spring to Italian mafia dance, this book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of relational reflexivity in political performance. By putting anthropological theory into dialogue with international development scholarship and artistic and activist practices, this book highlights how aesthetics and politics interrelate in precarious spheres of social life. The contributors of this interdisciplinary volume raise questions about the transformative potential of participating in and reflecting upon political performances both as individual and as collectives. The book argues that such processes provide a rich field and new pathways for anthropological explorations of peoples' own reflections on humanity, sociality, change, and aspiration. Reflecting on political transformations through performance puts centre stage the ethical dimensions of cultural politics and how we enact political subjectivity.
'When is reflection political, ethical? This multidimensional collection on performance as theatre opens up an arena for exploration through the sheer audacity of its scope. Anthropologically informed, diversely interpreted, it is a compelling example of unexpected collaborations.'
- Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge, UK
Very happy that the book Alex Ungprateeb Flynn and I edited back in 2015 is now out in paperback. Nice to be reminded of thought-provoking discussions in Manchester, Durham, and elsewhere with Jane Plastow, Jeff Juris, Rafael Schacter, Nick Long, Caroline Gatt, Rolf Hemke, Milo Rau, Catherine Schuler, Clare Foster, Stavroula Pypyrou, Dan Baron.
Anthropology, Theatre, and Development:
The Transformative Potential of Performance (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
From Pussy Riot and the Arab Spring to Italian mafia dance, this book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of relational reflexivity in political performance. By putting anthropological theory into dialogue with international development scholarship and artistic and activist practices, this book highlights how aesthetics and politics interrelate in precarious spheres of social life. The contributors of this interdisciplinary volume raise questions about the transformative potential of participating in and reflecting upon political performances both as individual and as collectives. The book argues that such processes provide a rich field and new pathways for anthropological explorations of peoples' own reflections on humanity, sociality, change, and aspiration. Reflecting on political transformations through performance puts centre stage the ethical dimensions of cultural politics and how we enact political subjectivity.
'When is reflection political, ethical? This multidimensional collection on performance as theatre opens up an arena for exploration through the sheer audacity of its scope. Anthropologically informed, diversely interpreted, it is a compelling example of unexpected collaborations.'
- Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge, UK
Gallery Reflection #4 'Protesting Identities'. 15 March 2018, 7pm.
A conversation with Candice Breitz (artist, Berlin), Natasha Ginwala (curator, researcher, author, Berlin), Azadeh Sharifi (theatre scholar, LMU Munich), and Jonas Tinius (anthropologist, HU Berlin).
For this last gallery reflection, we will be talking about “protesting identities”. The ambivalence in the phrasing is deliberate and refers to two aspects of the relation between identity politics and art. “Protesting identities” can mean both, “identities that protest” and “challenging (or protesting) identities”. How are identities mobilised to protest inequalities and discrimination, but also how do identities become traps for issues like tokenism and essentialism? How can artistic projects explore the tension between the collective agency of identities on the one hand and their singularity and subjectivity on the other hand? And how does the “protesting of identities”, meaning both their capacity for dissent and the challenge against the reification of identities relate to issues of broader systemic transformations? In this conversation, we wish to discuss different artistic, curatorial, and scholarly positions on the multiple and complex relation between identity, collectivity, and protest. We will be joined by Natasha Ginwala, who curates the last chapter On Riots and Resistance (opening 25 January 2018) of the one-year programme Untie to tie: On colonial legacies and contemporary societies. The event will take place at ACUD MACHT NEU's studio in Berlin-Mitte.
Event held in English. Admission free! // more info: untietotie.org/#exhibition/chapter4
A conversation with Candice Breitz (artist, Berlin), Natasha Ginwala (curator, researcher, author, Berlin), Azadeh Sharifi (theatre scholar, LMU Munich), and Jonas Tinius (anthropologist, HU Berlin).
For this last gallery reflection, we will be talking about “protesting identities”. The ambivalence in the phrasing is deliberate and refers to two aspects of the relation between identity politics and art. “Protesting identities” can mean both, “identities that protest” and “challenging (or protesting) identities”. How are identities mobilised to protest inequalities and discrimination, but also how do identities become traps for issues like tokenism and essentialism? How can artistic projects explore the tension between the collective agency of identities on the one hand and their singularity and subjectivity on the other hand? And how does the “protesting of identities”, meaning both their capacity for dissent and the challenge against the reification of identities relate to issues of broader systemic transformations? In this conversation, we wish to discuss different artistic, curatorial, and scholarly positions on the multiple and complex relation between identity, collectivity, and protest. We will be joined by Natasha Ginwala, who curates the last chapter On Riots and Resistance (opening 25 January 2018) of the one-year programme Untie to tie: On colonial legacies and contemporary societies. The event will take place at ACUD MACHT NEU's studio in Berlin-Mitte.
Event held in English. Admission free! // more info: untietotie.org/#exhibition/chapter4
(c) Vaginal Davis doing her drag king persona of Idaho based white supremacist militia man "Clarence Norbert" performing live at Hai-Karate in Silverlake songs from concept album The White to be Angry with "positive punque" speed metal thrash band Pedro,Muriel&Esther(PME),1994, Foto by Sean Carrillo, courtesy of Dan Gunn Gallery
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DisOthering. Beyond Afropolitain and other labels. Research Meeting at BOZAR (Brussels) for Mapping Diversity Project and Afropolitain Festival (23-26 February 2018)
Looking forward to attend the Afropolitain Festival and meeting with researchers from SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), BOZAR (Brussels) and Kulturen in Bewegung (Austria) for the mapping diversity research and visualisation project within the larger framework of the Creative Europe-funded research and exhibition project DISOTHERING. "DIS-OTHERING–BEYOND AFROPOLITAN & OTHER LABELS is a deliberation on the amoebic and morphed methodologies employed by institutions and societies at large in constructing and cultivating “Otherness” in our contemporaneity." This is part of an ongoing research collaboration. More information here, or peruse the brochure on the overall project as a pdf here. |
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'Awkward Art and Difficult Heritage' (chapter, Bloomsbury, 2018)
Delighted to find this in the post today. "An Anthropology of Contemporary Art: Practices, Markets, and Collectors" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) by Thomas Fillitz and Paul van der Grijp - contributing to a broader set of discussions and recent publications on collecting, exhibiting, curating in relation to contemporary anthropology of relevance for what we do at the Anthropologies of Art Network - A/A. The book includes chapters by Philippe Descola, Paolo S H Favero, Dayana Zdebsky de Cordova, Alicja Khatchikian, Alex Ungprateeb Flynn, Roger Sansi, Thomas Fillitz (on Biennale Dak’Art) and others. And it's the first chapter in which I write about my current fieldwork with SAVVY Contemporary, especially the Colonial Neighbours Archive Project. I also finally got to write something about awkwardness, difficult heritage, and Alfred Gell. It also brings back nice memories of EASA 2014 in Tallinn with Alex Ungprateeb Flynn, Faludi Julianna, María Paz Peirano, and others on our panel on relational patrons. The book is out in paperback, so actually affordable (for once)!
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/an-anthropology-of-contemporary-art-9781350016231/
Delighted to find this in the post today. "An Anthropology of Contemporary Art: Practices, Markets, and Collectors" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) by Thomas Fillitz and Paul van der Grijp - contributing to a broader set of discussions and recent publications on collecting, exhibiting, curating in relation to contemporary anthropology of relevance for what we do at the Anthropologies of Art Network - A/A. The book includes chapters by Philippe Descola, Paolo S H Favero, Dayana Zdebsky de Cordova, Alicja Khatchikian, Alex Ungprateeb Flynn, Roger Sansi, Thomas Fillitz (on Biennale Dak’Art) and others. And it's the first chapter in which I write about my current fieldwork with SAVVY Contemporary, especially the Colonial Neighbours Archive Project. I also finally got to write something about awkwardness, difficult heritage, and Alfred Gell. It also brings back nice memories of EASA 2014 in Tallinn with Alex Ungprateeb Flynn, Faludi Julianna, María Paz Peirano, and others on our panel on relational patrons. The book is out in paperback, so actually affordable (for once)!
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/an-anthropology-of-contemporary-art-9781350016231/
Editorial Board Membership, World Art Journal (Taylor and Francis)
I am delighted to have been invited to join the editorial board of World Art, an excellent journal publishing (open-access) articles on art, anthropology, archaeology, the visual arts, and museums around the globe. World Art is a peer-reviewed journal for scholars, students and art practitioners which considers art across time, place and culture. It aims to bring new insights and analysis to a wider, global audience. The journal promotes experimental and comparative approaches for studying human creativity, past and present. It provides a forum for rethinking artistic and interpretive categories and for addressing cultural translation of art practices, canons and discourses.
More information on journal and editorial board can be found here: WORLD ART JOURNAL
I am delighted to have been invited to join the editorial board of World Art, an excellent journal publishing (open-access) articles on art, anthropology, archaeology, the visual arts, and museums around the globe. World Art is a peer-reviewed journal for scholars, students and art practitioners which considers art across time, place and culture. It aims to bring new insights and analysis to a wider, global audience. The journal promotes experimental and comparative approaches for studying human creativity, past and present. It provides a forum for rethinking artistic and interpretive categories and for addressing cultural translation of art practices, canons and discourses.
More information on journal and editorial board can be found here: WORLD ART JOURNAL
Fellowship, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI), January 2018
In January 2018, I joined the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) as a Fellow and will be convening a panel at their upcoming major conference 'Art, Materiality, and Representation' taking place 1-3 June 2018 at the British Museum and SOAS in London, England. My profile can be found here.
The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is the world's longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology (the study of humankind) in its broadest and most inclusive sense. The Institute is a non-profit-making registered charity and is entirely independent, with a Director and a small staff accountable to the Council, which in turn is elected annually from the Fellowship. It has a Royal Patron in the person of HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG, GCVO.
The Royal Anthropological Institute seeks to combine a distinguished tradition of scholarship stretching back over more than 150 years with the active provision of services to contemporary anthropology and anthropologists (including students of anthropology). It has a particular commitment to promoting the public understanding of anthropology, and the contribution of anthropology to public affairs.
In January 2018, I joined the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) as a Fellow and will be convening a panel at their upcoming major conference 'Art, Materiality, and Representation' taking place 1-3 June 2018 at the British Museum and SOAS in London, England. My profile can be found here.
The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is the world's longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology (the study of humankind) in its broadest and most inclusive sense. The Institute is a non-profit-making registered charity and is entirely independent, with a Director and a small staff accountable to the Council, which in turn is elected annually from the Fellowship. It has a Royal Patron in the person of HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG, GCVO.
The Royal Anthropological Institute seeks to combine a distinguished tradition of scholarship stretching back over more than 150 years with the active provision of services to contemporary anthropology and anthropologists (including students of anthropology). It has a particular commitment to promoting the public understanding of anthropology, and the contribution of anthropology to public affairs.
Hölderlin-Gastvortrag an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, 23 January 2017
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Eine Veranstaltung der Professur für Theaterwissen- schaft am Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main in Kooperation mit der Hessischen Theaterakademie und dem Forschungszentrum für Historische Geisteswissenschaften der Goethe-Universität.
Leitung Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Müller-Schöll, Dr. Matthias Dreyer, Leon Gabriel M.A. Weitere Informationen www.hoelderlin-gastprofessur.de 
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'"Je est un autre": Ein anthropologischer Blick auf Fiktion, Identität und Alterität in der darstellenden Kunst'. Ringvorlesung 'Tiere, Maschinen und andere Menschen. Zur anthropologischen Kritik in den Künsten', Freie Universität Berlin, 9. Januar 2018
Freue mich, am 9. Januar 2018 einen Vortrag im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Tiere, Maschinen und andere Menschen. Zur anthropologischen Kritik in den Künsten" an der Freien Universität Berlin zu halten. Immer Dienstags, 16-18 Uhr, Grunewaldstr. 35, Hörsaal. Organisiert von Jan Lazardzig, Sabine Nessel, Matthias Warstat.
Zur Ringvorlesung: Bilder und Performanzen von Menschen sind in den Künsten allgegenwärtig: Eine Frau an der Bushaltestelle, eine Dreiergruppe vorne an der Bühnenrampe, zwei Tänzer in Tierposen, ein Paar im Auto, eine Gruppe bei einem Picknick im Grünen. Die Vorlesung stellt die Frage, in welcher Weise Film, Theater, Tanz und bildende Kunst menschliche Existenz aktiv gestalten. Anstatt davon auszugehen, dass die Künste Bilder und Performanzen des Menschen vorfinden, aufnehmen und repräsentieren, wird von einem aktiven Gestalten dieser Bilder und Performanzen durch die Künste ausgegangen. Die Künste modulieren, inszenieren, imaginieren und zeigen dabei ganz unterschiedliche Existenzen des Menschen: Menschen in Abgrenzung zum Tier oder als dessen Gefährten; als Gegenmodell zur Maschine oder als deren Schöpfer; oder sind von dem Wunsch geleitet, die anthropologische Differenz (Mensch-Tier-Differenz) zu überwinden bzw. mit der Maschine eins zu sein. Die Vorlesung untersucht Bilder, Filme, Inszenierungen und Performances als Knotenpunkte, in denen heterogene anthropologische Positionen aufeinandertreffen. Diese Positionen betreffen fundamentale Konditionen menschlichen Lebens, etwa Fragen der Grenzziehung (bzw. Relation) zwischen Mensch und Tier, Mensch und Ding, Natur und Kultur, Möglichkeiten der Zeit- und Raumerfahrung, Vorstellungen vom Körper und dessen Ausdrucksformen im Zeichen einer Technisierung, Maschinisierung und Digitalisierung des Lebens. Anhand von Bildern, Filmen, Inszenierungen und Performances sollen u.a. folgende Fragen aufgeworfen und gemeinsam diskutiert werden: Inwiefern manifestieren sich in den Künsten anthropologische Modelle und Annahmen? Auf welche Weise kann es im Übergang zwischen den Künsten zu komplexen Konfrontationen, aber auch Rekombinationen und Variationen solcher inhärenten Modelle kommen? Inwieweit lässt sich von einer anthropologischen Kritik in den Künsten sprechen? Die Vorlesung ist transdisziplinär ausgelegt und richtet sich an Bachelor- und Masterstudierende der Theater- und Filmwissenschaft sowie angrenzender Disziplinen.
Freue mich, am 9. Januar 2018 einen Vortrag im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung "Tiere, Maschinen und andere Menschen. Zur anthropologischen Kritik in den Künsten" an der Freien Universität Berlin zu halten. Immer Dienstags, 16-18 Uhr, Grunewaldstr. 35, Hörsaal. Organisiert von Jan Lazardzig, Sabine Nessel, Matthias Warstat.
Zur Ringvorlesung: Bilder und Performanzen von Menschen sind in den Künsten allgegenwärtig: Eine Frau an der Bushaltestelle, eine Dreiergruppe vorne an der Bühnenrampe, zwei Tänzer in Tierposen, ein Paar im Auto, eine Gruppe bei einem Picknick im Grünen. Die Vorlesung stellt die Frage, in welcher Weise Film, Theater, Tanz und bildende Kunst menschliche Existenz aktiv gestalten. Anstatt davon auszugehen, dass die Künste Bilder und Performanzen des Menschen vorfinden, aufnehmen und repräsentieren, wird von einem aktiven Gestalten dieser Bilder und Performanzen durch die Künste ausgegangen. Die Künste modulieren, inszenieren, imaginieren und zeigen dabei ganz unterschiedliche Existenzen des Menschen: Menschen in Abgrenzung zum Tier oder als dessen Gefährten; als Gegenmodell zur Maschine oder als deren Schöpfer; oder sind von dem Wunsch geleitet, die anthropologische Differenz (Mensch-Tier-Differenz) zu überwinden bzw. mit der Maschine eins zu sein. Die Vorlesung untersucht Bilder, Filme, Inszenierungen und Performances als Knotenpunkte, in denen heterogene anthropologische Positionen aufeinandertreffen. Diese Positionen betreffen fundamentale Konditionen menschlichen Lebens, etwa Fragen der Grenzziehung (bzw. Relation) zwischen Mensch und Tier, Mensch und Ding, Natur und Kultur, Möglichkeiten der Zeit- und Raumerfahrung, Vorstellungen vom Körper und dessen Ausdrucksformen im Zeichen einer Technisierung, Maschinisierung und Digitalisierung des Lebens. Anhand von Bildern, Filmen, Inszenierungen und Performances sollen u.a. folgende Fragen aufgeworfen und gemeinsam diskutiert werden: Inwiefern manifestieren sich in den Künsten anthropologische Modelle und Annahmen? Auf welche Weise kann es im Übergang zwischen den Künsten zu komplexen Konfrontationen, aber auch Rekombinationen und Variationen solcher inhärenten Modelle kommen? Inwieweit lässt sich von einer anthropologischen Kritik in den Künsten sprechen? Die Vorlesung ist transdisziplinär ausgelegt und richtet sich an Bachelor- und Masterstudierende der Theater- und Filmwissenschaft sowie angrenzender Disziplinen.
Ausführlicher Zitty Artikel über das Humboldt Forum und kritische CARMAH Forschung in Berlin, 17. Oktober 2017
"An der HU thematisieren jüngere Ethnologen und Ethnologinnen wie Larissa Förster und Jonas Tinius neue Ansätze, wie hiesige Forscher und Museumsmitarbeiter mit Experten aus den Herkunftsländern der Objekte zusammenarbeiten und das geteilte Wissen präsentieren können."
Link: https://www.zitty.de/humboldt-forum-die-fakten/
"An der HU thematisieren jüngere Ethnologen und Ethnologinnen wie Larissa Förster und Jonas Tinius neue Ansätze, wie hiesige Forscher und Museumsmitarbeiter mit Experten aus den Herkunftsländern der Objekte zusammenarbeiten und das geteilte Wissen präsentieren können."
Link: https://www.zitty.de/humboldt-forum-die-fakten/
'Decolonise our reflections'. Public dialogue with curator Alya Sebti at La Colonie, Paris, 5 December 2017
Looking forward to this public conversation with curator Alya Sebti at Kader Attia's La Colonie in Paris on 5 December. This is part of Alex Flynn and Noara Quintana's art/anthropology residency Concrete Mirror // Exhibition // EHESS. We'll be talking about our ongoing series of gallery reflections for the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) Gallery programme Untie to tie: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies - thanks to all the activists, scholars, artists who have participated in it so far * Noa Ha, Trang Tran Thu, Hyunsin Kim (Gallery Reflection #1), Khadija Zinnenburg Carroll, Nora Al-Badri, Silvy Chakkalakal (GR #2), Alanna Lockward, Federica Bueti, Kathy-Ann Tan (GR #3). More to come in the new year, including a last gallery reflection on Protest & Identities and a collaboration with the educational programme organised by Annika Niemann.
Link to event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1574018235954807/ and on the project's website: https://concretemirror.cargocollective.com/VI-Dialogue
Looking forward to this public conversation with curator Alya Sebti at Kader Attia's La Colonie in Paris on 5 December. This is part of Alex Flynn and Noara Quintana's art/anthropology residency Concrete Mirror // Exhibition // EHESS. We'll be talking about our ongoing series of gallery reflections for the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) Gallery programme Untie to tie: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies - thanks to all the activists, scholars, artists who have participated in it so far * Noa Ha, Trang Tran Thu, Hyunsin Kim (Gallery Reflection #1), Khadija Zinnenburg Carroll, Nora Al-Badri, Silvy Chakkalakal (GR #2), Alanna Lockward, Federica Bueti, Kathy-Ann Tan (GR #3). More to come in the new year, including a last gallery reflection on Protest & Identities and a collaboration with the educational programme organised by Annika Niemann.
Link to event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1574018235954807/ and on the project's website: https://concretemirror.cargocollective.com/VI-Dialogue
Ethnografisches (Be)Schreiben in den Kunstwissenschaften, Freie Universität Workshop, 25 November 2017.
Die Veranstaltung geht von der Beobachtung aus, dass trotz der starken Methodenreflexion zwischen Kunst und Anthropologie und dem großen Interesse an ethnografischen Methoden in den Kunstwissenschaften, Unklarheiten in einem interdisziplinären Forschungskontext darüber bestehen, wie sich Beobachtungen und Teilnahme in künstlerischen Praktiken in ethnografische Beschreibungen, Analysen und Textelemente übersetzen lassen. Aufbauend auf der von Anne Schuh und Daniela Hahn 2015 am Institut für Theaterwissenschaft (FU) abgehaltenen beiden interdisziplinären Workshops zu Ethnographischen Methoden in den Kunstwissenschaften und der von Prof. Matthias Warstat und Prof. Sophie Houdart veranstalteten Sommerschule „Ethnographie der Künste – Künste der Ethnographie“ (Nizza, 2017), werden in diesem Workshop konkrete Beispiele (exemplarischer) Ethnografien diskutiert, die sich einer Bandbreite von künstlerischen Praktiken und Schreibweisen widmen. Geleitet von Jonas Tinius in Zusammenarbeit mit Anne Schuh (FU Berlin).
Die Veranstaltung geht von der Beobachtung aus, dass trotz der starken Methodenreflexion zwischen Kunst und Anthropologie und dem großen Interesse an ethnografischen Methoden in den Kunstwissenschaften, Unklarheiten in einem interdisziplinären Forschungskontext darüber bestehen, wie sich Beobachtungen und Teilnahme in künstlerischen Praktiken in ethnografische Beschreibungen, Analysen und Textelemente übersetzen lassen. Aufbauend auf der von Anne Schuh und Daniela Hahn 2015 am Institut für Theaterwissenschaft (FU) abgehaltenen beiden interdisziplinären Workshops zu Ethnographischen Methoden in den Kunstwissenschaften und der von Prof. Matthias Warstat und Prof. Sophie Houdart veranstalteten Sommerschule „Ethnographie der Künste – Künste der Ethnographie“ (Nizza, 2017), werden in diesem Workshop konkrete Beispiele (exemplarischer) Ethnografien diskutiert, die sich einer Bandbreite von künstlerischen Praktiken und Schreibweisen widmen. Geleitet von Jonas Tinius in Zusammenarbeit mit Anne Schuh (FU Berlin).
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YOU NOW LEAVE THE ARTISTIC SECTOR, OR: THE TREND OF USEFULNESS. Panel Discussion at ACUD MACHT NEU, Berlin. 24 November 2017
Kunst besitzt transformatorisches Potential diese Ästhetik der Verursachung (Diederichsen) trifft heute ganz allgemein die Stimmung und Erwartung gegenüber den Künsten und ihren Akteuren. Die Podiumsdiskussion thematisiert den Trend zur Nützlichkeit aus der Perspektive der unterschiedlichen Disziplinen. Mit ALICE CREISCHER [Künstlerin, Berlin], MARIA-SIBYLLA LOTTER [Philosophin, Universität Bochum], MICHAEL LÜTHY [Kunsthistoriker, Universität Weimar], JONAS TINIUS [Anthropologe, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin]. MODERATION: SÉVERINE MARGUIN, HEIMO LATTNER [a+f] Im Rahmen des UdK- Einsteinprojekts Autonomie und Funktionalisierung. www.udk-berlin.de/autonomie-und-funktionalisierung |
Vortrag und World Café Moderation, Jahrestagung des Landesverband Museen zu Berlin, Märkisches Museum, 20.11.17 Diversität ist derzeit in aller Munde, aber was verbirgt sich dahinter? Unter dem Begriff »diversitätsorientierte Organisationsentwicklung« wird der Prozess verstanden, mit dem sich die gesellschaftliche Vielfalt auch in Institutionen und Organisationen abbilden soll. Dazu müssen Veränderungsprozesse auf allen Ebenen angestoßen werden. Die Veranstaltung möchte daher erste Handlungsoptionen vorstellen, wie Diversitätsprozesse für die Bereiche Publikum, Personal und Programm angeregt werden können. Nach einem Input besteht die Möglichkeit, mit Expert*innen und Kolleg*innen aus den jeweiligen Bereichen Erfahrungen auszutauschen, um Stolpersteine zu identifizieren und erfolgreiche Ansätze zu entwickeln.
Es hat mich gefreut, am Montag einen Vortrag zu anthropologischen Reflexionen des Begriffs Diversität aus der Forschungspraxis zu halten, in dem ich u.a. über Positionalität, Intersektionalität und die Gallery Reflections Reihe in der if-Galerie gesprochen habe. Im Anschluss habe ich mit Léontine Meijer-van Mensch (Programmdirektorin, Jüdisches Museum Berlin) und Paul Spies (Direktor Stadtmuseum Berlin) zwei World Cafés zum Thema Diversität und Programmgestaltung abgehalten. Weitere Informationen zum Programm gibt es hier: https://www.lmb.museum/de/verband-uber-uns/jahrestagungen/
Es hat mich gefreut, am Montag einen Vortrag zu anthropologischen Reflexionen des Begriffs Diversität aus der Forschungspraxis zu halten, in dem ich u.a. über Positionalität, Intersektionalität und die Gallery Reflections Reihe in der if-Galerie gesprochen habe. Im Anschluss habe ich mit Léontine Meijer-van Mensch (Programmdirektorin, Jüdisches Museum Berlin) und Paul Spies (Direktor Stadtmuseum Berlin) zwei World Cafés zum Thema Diversität und Programmgestaltung abgehalten. Weitere Informationen zum Programm gibt es hier: https://www.lmb.museum/de/verband-uber-uns/jahrestagungen/
Gallery Reflection #3 - Art and (New) Intersectional Feminisms at Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) Galerie, Berlin
Join me on 16th November for a conversation with Federica Bueti (writer and editor, SAVVY Contemporary), Alanna Lockward (author, filmmaker, BE.BOP curator), Kathy-Ann Tan (academic, American Studies, Berlin)
Intersectional feminism acknowledges and underlines how the structural, global, and subjective entanglements of race, class, ethnicity, religion, and gender affect women’s and trans people’s experiences. How do artistic practices reflect, articulate, or critique this political position? What are the legacies of past and pioneering iterations of Black feminist intersectional thought (Kimberlé Crenshaw) and activism and how do they relate to new generations of artists, activists, academics? What role does art play in the quest for an intersectional feminist political economy? For the third event in the gallery reflection series, we will be discussing the relation of art to intersectional feminism in the context of the exhibition Every Mask I Ever Loved by Nigerian-American artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji curated by Eva Barois De Caevel as part of the one-year programme Untie to tie: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies curated by brilliant Alya Sebti.
Read the opening essay on the series here: http://untietotie.org/…/tinius_-an-introduction-to-the-ga…/…
More information on the event: http://untietotie.org/documentation/gallery-reflection-3/
Join me on 16th November for a conversation with Federica Bueti (writer and editor, SAVVY Contemporary), Alanna Lockward (author, filmmaker, BE.BOP curator), Kathy-Ann Tan (academic, American Studies, Berlin)
Intersectional feminism acknowledges and underlines how the structural, global, and subjective entanglements of race, class, ethnicity, religion, and gender affect women’s and trans people’s experiences. How do artistic practices reflect, articulate, or critique this political position? What are the legacies of past and pioneering iterations of Black feminist intersectional thought (Kimberlé Crenshaw) and activism and how do they relate to new generations of artists, activists, academics? What role does art play in the quest for an intersectional feminist political economy? For the third event in the gallery reflection series, we will be discussing the relation of art to intersectional feminism in the context of the exhibition Every Mask I Ever Loved by Nigerian-American artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji curated by Eva Barois De Caevel as part of the one-year programme Untie to tie: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies curated by brilliant Alya Sebti.
Read the opening essay on the series here: http://untietotie.org/…/tinius_-an-introduction-to-the-ga…/…
More information on the event: http://untietotie.org/documentation/gallery-reflection-3/
'Back to the Future Heritage: On Palatial Space and Anthropological Collaboration'. Anthropology Department Seminar, University of Manchester, UK, 13 November 2017
In this talk, I discuss the negotiation of space, heritage, and notions of difference in contemporary Berlin. My presentation is based on research conducted as part of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation funded project Making Differences in Berlin: Transforming Museums and Heritage in the 21st Century, based in the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and directed by Prof Sharon Macdonald. Against the backdrop of contentious (ethnological) museum projects in the city, most notably the Humboldt-Forum, my research explores how Berlin-based curators, contemporary artists, and art institutions reflect on and negotiate notions of alterity and diversity through their critical curatorial strategies and projects. As part of this study, I am developing collaborative methods to follow the exhibition making and curatorial planning in these spaces, exploring the boundaries and productive intersections of ethnographic, artistic, and curatorial work as well as the relations between art and anthropology more generally. Before my presentation, we are also briefly speaking about aspects of my previous doctoral research, for which I conducted an ethnography of a contemporary German public theatre in the postindustrial Ruhrvalley in the West of the country. I followed the daily workings of this institution, especially the practice of rehearsing, focusing on how centuries-old German public traditions of self-formation (Bildung) through art have influenced theatres in the country. I analysed the pervasiveness of ideas of self-formation with regard to the logic of state-funding for the arts in Germany, but also studied how this tradition of Bildung brought about and affected a set of artistic values common across the German theatre system revolving around questions of autonomy, the individual, and self-cultivation. 2.016/.017 Second Floor Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building 4:15 – 6:00pm (Tea and coffee available outside the room from 4:00pm)
http://events.manchester.ac.uk/event/event:ow8-j7q93k6z-9c37z7
In this talk, I discuss the negotiation of space, heritage, and notions of difference in contemporary Berlin. My presentation is based on research conducted as part of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation funded project Making Differences in Berlin: Transforming Museums and Heritage in the 21st Century, based in the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and directed by Prof Sharon Macdonald. Against the backdrop of contentious (ethnological) museum projects in the city, most notably the Humboldt-Forum, my research explores how Berlin-based curators, contemporary artists, and art institutions reflect on and negotiate notions of alterity and diversity through their critical curatorial strategies and projects. As part of this study, I am developing collaborative methods to follow the exhibition making and curatorial planning in these spaces, exploring the boundaries and productive intersections of ethnographic, artistic, and curatorial work as well as the relations between art and anthropology more generally. Before my presentation, we are also briefly speaking about aspects of my previous doctoral research, for which I conducted an ethnography of a contemporary German public theatre in the postindustrial Ruhrvalley in the West of the country. I followed the daily workings of this institution, especially the practice of rehearsing, focusing on how centuries-old German public traditions of self-formation (Bildung) through art have influenced theatres in the country. I analysed the pervasiveness of ideas of self-formation with regard to the logic of state-funding for the arts in Germany, but also studied how this tradition of Bildung brought about and affected a set of artistic values common across the German theatre system revolving around questions of autonomy, the individual, and self-cultivation. 2.016/.017 Second Floor Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building 4:15 – 6:00pm (Tea and coffee available outside the room from 4:00pm)
http://events.manchester.ac.uk/event/event:ow8-j7q93k6z-9c37z7
Nordwind Festival Panels on Borderlessness and Roots/Foresight: NORTHxSOUTH Festival Songs of a Melting Iceberg at SAVVY Contemporary/Silent Green, 7 & 11 November Berlin
Today, Wednesday 8 November and Saturday 11 November I will be moderating two panels as part of this year's NORDWIND Festival in Berlin. The first panel BORDERLESSNESS will be with Marja Helander (FIN), Frederikke Hansen (SE), and Athi-Patra Ruga (ZA). Join me again on Saturday, 11 November, 4.30pm, at NORDWIND festival co-curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen for a panel on ROOTS & FORESIGHT with Dafna Maimon (FIN) whose exhibition Dafna Maimon - Orient Express will be opening at Galerie Wedding - Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst next week, and filmmaker Ivalo Frank (GRL) whose film Anahi's Room is showing at SAVVY Contemporary. Everyone welcome, no registration necessary. Helander is a filmmaker and a photographer from Finland. Hansen is an independent curator and co-director of CAMP / Center for Art on Migration Politics. Ruga is a world-renowned fashion designer, performer and visual artist from South Africa. Dafna Maimon is an artist, whose practice includes short films, performance, online TV shows, texts, sculptures and interventions. Maimon has shown her work in institutions and art spaces such as KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin) and at the Icelandic Pavilion 57th Venice Biennale. Frank, born in 1975, is a film-maker and artist from Greenland. She received the Best Documentary Award at the London Underground Film Festival.
http://nordwind-festival.de/2017/ // https://www.facebook.com/events/133545873963949/
Today, Wednesday 8 November and Saturday 11 November I will be moderating two panels as part of this year's NORDWIND Festival in Berlin. The first panel BORDERLESSNESS will be with Marja Helander (FIN), Frederikke Hansen (SE), and Athi-Patra Ruga (ZA). Join me again on Saturday, 11 November, 4.30pm, at NORDWIND festival co-curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen for a panel on ROOTS & FORESIGHT with Dafna Maimon (FIN) whose exhibition Dafna Maimon - Orient Express will be opening at Galerie Wedding - Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst next week, and filmmaker Ivalo Frank (GRL) whose film Anahi's Room is showing at SAVVY Contemporary. Everyone welcome, no registration necessary. Helander is a filmmaker and a photographer from Finland. Hansen is an independent curator and co-director of CAMP / Center for Art on Migration Politics. Ruga is a world-renowned fashion designer, performer and visual artist from South Africa. Dafna Maimon is an artist, whose practice includes short films, performance, online TV shows, texts, sculptures and interventions. Maimon has shown her work in institutions and art spaces such as KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin) and at the Icelandic Pavilion 57th Venice Biennale. Frank, born in 1975, is a film-maker and artist from Greenland. She received the Best Documentary Award at the London Underground Film Festival.
http://nordwind-festival.de/2017/ // https://www.facebook.com/events/133545873963949/
'Future Memories. Migration und Diversität in europäischen Museen'. (Video of Keynote and panel discussion at Jewish Museum / Jüdisches Museum Berlin, 26 September 2017)
Opening Keynote (in English) and panel discussion (in German) on three-day workshop in cooperation with the Centre for Metropolitan Studies (Technische Universität Berlin), W.M. Blumenthal Academy, Jüdisches Museum Berlin | Jewish Museum Berlin. Opening keynote speech and panel discussions with Dr Christina Johansson (Malmö University, Sweden), Natalie Bayer (Stadtmuseum München), and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński (Vienna Academy of Fine Arts), chaired and introduced by Dr Jonas Tinius (CARMAH/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). Berlin/Germany. 26 September 2017.
More info: https://www.jmberlin.de/vortrag-future-memories
Opening Keynote (in English) and panel discussion (in German) on three-day workshop in cooperation with the Centre for Metropolitan Studies (Technische Universität Berlin), W.M. Blumenthal Academy, Jüdisches Museum Berlin | Jewish Museum Berlin. Opening keynote speech and panel discussions with Dr Christina Johansson (Malmö University, Sweden), Natalie Bayer (Stadtmuseum München), and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński (Vienna Academy of Fine Arts), chaired and introduced by Dr Jonas Tinius (CARMAH/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). Berlin/Germany. 26 September 2017.
More info: https://www.jmberlin.de/vortrag-future-memories
'Art as ethical practice' - journal article is now open-access
My article 'Art as ethical practice: anthropological observations on and beyond theatre', published in a special issue of World Art on the relation between aesthetics and ethics is now available for free download. Download the article here.
Abstract: This article discusses a central tenet of anthropological approaches to ethics, namely the notion of conduct. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with contemporary German theatre professionals, this article highlights how actors and directors within a public theatre institution cultivate artistic forms of conduct through the practice of the rehearsal. It analyses how rehearsals emerge as both spaces and practices of self-conduct, building on what actors refer to as Haltung – a term that simultaneously denotes attitude, posture, and conduct. Rehearsals facilitate a collective locus and modus of reflected action, suffused with the authority of the director, but ultimately aimed at training actors’ capacity to make ethical and aesthetic choices. The aim of this discussion is to show how emic artistic concepts and practices may refine existing and open up new pathways for dialogue between the ethnographic study of art and the anthropology of ethics.
My article 'Art as ethical practice: anthropological observations on and beyond theatre', published in a special issue of World Art on the relation between aesthetics and ethics is now available for free download. Download the article here.
Abstract: This article discusses a central tenet of anthropological approaches to ethics, namely the notion of conduct. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with contemporary German theatre professionals, this article highlights how actors and directors within a public theatre institution cultivate artistic forms of conduct through the practice of the rehearsal. It analyses how rehearsals emerge as both spaces and practices of self-conduct, building on what actors refer to as Haltung – a term that simultaneously denotes attitude, posture, and conduct. Rehearsals facilitate a collective locus and modus of reflected action, suffused with the authority of the director, but ultimately aimed at training actors’ capacity to make ethical and aesthetic choices. The aim of this discussion is to show how emic artistic concepts and practices may refine existing and open up new pathways for dialogue between the ethnographic study of art and the anthropology of ethics.
Actors Dagmar Geppert, Albert Bork, and Volker Roos during a rehearsal. Photograph by Joachim Schmitz © Theater an der Ruhr.
Gallery Reflection #2 Traces, Legacies, and Futures - now online
What does it mean to speak of colonial legacies (in the present), and how is this different from talking about traces, or remnants? In what sense do processes such as repatriation, decolonization, and institutional critique concern a future-oriented temporal thinking? How do practices of copying and authenticating colonial objects challenge ideas of linear temporalities, and what role does art play in negotiating these entanglements?
Gallery Reflection #2 Traces, Legacies, and Futures: A Conversation on Art and Temporality
Thursday, 7 September, 7 pm, ifa Gallery Berlin
with Nora Al-Badri (artist, Berlin), Silvy Chakkalakal (anthropologist, HU Berlin), Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (artist and art historian, Birmingham/London), and Jonas Tinius (anthropologist, CARMAH/HU Berlin)
Gallery Reflections is a series of public discussions on institutions and curatorial practices moderated by anthropologist Jonas Tinius in the framework of Untie to Tie – Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies.
What does it mean to speak of colonial legacies (in the present), and how is this different from talking about traces, or remnants? In what sense do processes such as repatriation, decolonization, and institutional critique concern a future-oriented temporal thinking? How do practices of copying and authenticating colonial objects challenge ideas of linear temporalities, and what role does art play in negotiating these entanglements?
Gallery Reflection #2 Traces, Legacies, and Futures: A Conversation on Art and Temporality
Thursday, 7 September, 7 pm, ifa Gallery Berlin
with Nora Al-Badri (artist, Berlin), Silvy Chakkalakal (anthropologist, HU Berlin), Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (artist and art historian, Birmingham/London), and Jonas Tinius (anthropologist, CARMAH/HU Berlin)
Gallery Reflections is a series of public discussions on institutions and curatorial practices moderated by anthropologist Jonas Tinius in the framework of Untie to Tie – Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies.
Keynote and panel discussion FUTURE MEMORIES: Migration and Diversity in European Museums, Blumenthal Academy, Jewish Museum Berlin, 26 September 2017
In many European countries, history is still told mononationally, often disregarding places and narratives of minority communities. This event places various European museums – who play an active part in shaping commemorative cultures – at the heart of the discussion. Dr. Christina Johansson (University of Malmö) opens the evening with a talk on migration, memory, and museums. Afterwards, Dr. Christina Johansson discusses the importance of minority perspectives for the commemorative cultures of European migrant societies and how dominant patterns of historiography can be modified with Natalie Bayer (Stadtmuseum Munich) and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński (Vienna Academy of Fine Arts). The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Jonas Tinius (Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, CARMAH).
https://www.jmberlin.de/en/talk-future-memories
In many European countries, history is still told mononationally, often disregarding places and narratives of minority communities. This event places various European museums – who play an active part in shaping commemorative cultures – at the heart of the discussion. Dr. Christina Johansson (University of Malmö) opens the evening with a talk on migration, memory, and museums. Afterwards, Dr. Christina Johansson discusses the importance of minority perspectives for the commemorative cultures of European migrant societies and how dominant patterns of historiography can be modified with Natalie Bayer (Stadtmuseum Munich) and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński (Vienna Academy of Fine Arts). The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Jonas Tinius (Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, CARMAH).
https://www.jmberlin.de/en/talk-future-memories
Panel discussion: Cabinet of the Unknown / Cabinet d'Ignorance, Museum der Dinge Berlin, 25 September 2017
Erhalten Sie einen Einblick in das so genannte Cabinet d’Ignorance, das Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts Teil der fürstlichen Sammlungen des Sächsischen Hofes war. Dabei handelt es sich um eine museologisch interessante Tradition der Präsentation von unbekannten Objekten. Im Gespräch zwischen Dr. Michael Korea (Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden) und Ece Pazarbaşı (Kurator und International Fellow, Kulturstiftung des Bundes) werden Sie Hintergründe erfahren und für Wahrnehmungspraktiken zur Annäherung an unbekannte Objekte im Lichte konventionell tradierter und zeitgenössischer museologischer Ansätze sensibilisiert. Und dabei unbekannte Objekte aus den Dresdner Sammlungen kennenlernen. Dr. Jonas Tinius moderiert das Gespräch.
To the finissage of our special exhibition ‘Cabinet of the Unknown’ you will get an insight into the so called Cabinet d’Ignorance, an integral part of the princely collections of the Saxon Court at the beginning of the 18th century. It refers to a fascinating museological tradition of presentation of unknown objects. During the conversation between Dr. Michael Korey (Senior Curator/ Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden) and Ece Pazarbaşı (Fellow Curator/ Cabinet of the Unknown) you will learn about cultural backgrounds and be sensitized to perceptual practices for approaching unknown objects through a light shed from conventional and contemporary museologic strategy. At the same time discovering intriguing unknown objects from the Dresden collection. Dr. Jonas Tinius (Postdoctoral Research Fellow/ Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage) moderates the talk.
http://www.museumderdinge.org/events-education/finissage-cabinet-dignorance-cabinet-unknown
Erhalten Sie einen Einblick in das so genannte Cabinet d’Ignorance, das Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts Teil der fürstlichen Sammlungen des Sächsischen Hofes war. Dabei handelt es sich um eine museologisch interessante Tradition der Präsentation von unbekannten Objekten. Im Gespräch zwischen Dr. Michael Korea (Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden) und Ece Pazarbaşı (Kurator und International Fellow, Kulturstiftung des Bundes) werden Sie Hintergründe erfahren und für Wahrnehmungspraktiken zur Annäherung an unbekannte Objekte im Lichte konventionell tradierter und zeitgenössischer museologischer Ansätze sensibilisiert. Und dabei unbekannte Objekte aus den Dresdner Sammlungen kennenlernen. Dr. Jonas Tinius moderiert das Gespräch.
To the finissage of our special exhibition ‘Cabinet of the Unknown’ you will get an insight into the so called Cabinet d’Ignorance, an integral part of the princely collections of the Saxon Court at the beginning of the 18th century. It refers to a fascinating museological tradition of presentation of unknown objects. During the conversation between Dr. Michael Korey (Senior Curator/ Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden) and Ece Pazarbaşı (Fellow Curator/ Cabinet of the Unknown) you will learn about cultural backgrounds and be sensitized to perceptual practices for approaching unknown objects through a light shed from conventional and contemporary museologic strategy. At the same time discovering intriguing unknown objects from the Dresden collection. Dr. Jonas Tinius (Postdoctoral Research Fellow/ Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage) moderates the talk.
http://www.museumderdinge.org/events-education/finissage-cabinet-dignorance-cabinet-unknown
Keynote at German-French Summer School 'Ethnographies of Art / Art of Ethnography', Villa Arson, Nice (France), 21 September 2017
On Thursday, I will be giving a keynote at the summer school 'Ethnographie des arts, arts de l'ethnographie' (17-24 September 2017). For this residence, anthropologists, designers, theatre scholars, and artists will be coming together for one week at the art school and modernist/Mediterranean/brutalist (ask the architect) site for contemporary art creation, Villa Arson, in Nice (France). My keynote will be dealing with key methodological and epistemological issues that arise when conceiving ethnographies of artistic production. Invited keynotes: Matthias Warstat (Berlin), Annemarie Matzke (Hildesheim), Sandra Umathum (Ernst Busch), Sophie Houdart (Paris), and Jonas Tinius (Berlin).
Une résidence d’été organisée par :
CréaLab / Villa Arson / FU Berlin / LESC – Université Paris Ouest Nanterre
https://www.villa-arson.org/2017/08/ethnographie-des-arts-arts-de-lethnographie/
On Thursday, I will be giving a keynote at the summer school 'Ethnographie des arts, arts de l'ethnographie' (17-24 September 2017). For this residence, anthropologists, designers, theatre scholars, and artists will be coming together for one week at the art school and modernist/Mediterranean/brutalist (ask the architect) site for contemporary art creation, Villa Arson, in Nice (France). My keynote will be dealing with key methodological and epistemological issues that arise when conceiving ethnographies of artistic production. Invited keynotes: Matthias Warstat (Berlin), Annemarie Matzke (Hildesheim), Sandra Umathum (Ernst Busch), Sophie Houdart (Paris), and Jonas Tinius (Berlin).
Une résidence d’été organisée par :
CréaLab / Villa Arson / FU Berlin / LESC – Université Paris Ouest Nanterre
https://www.villa-arson.org/2017/08/ethnographie-des-arts-arts-de-lethnographie/
The Porosity of Darkness - Conversation on Venice Biennale for Mousse Magazine, published 13 September 2017
Imagine yourself wrapped in darkness, losing your sense of orientation, while flickers of light refracted through an architecture of glass and the sound of disembodied voices guide you through a story of myth, archetype, and loss. The theatre of glowing darkness is one section of artist Kirstine Roepstorff’s project for the Danish Pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, but it extends further, into the deconstructed site of the neoclassical 1930s gallery and 1960s extensions by Peter Koch. Roepstorff has reconceived and reconstructed these spaces as loci of regeneration, replete with soil, plants, and woven tapestry. The pavilion itself is part of a broader project called influenza, for which the artist has assembled—in a manner mirroring the viral transmission of its subject—a learning network and consortium of creative practitioners, including curator Solvej Helweg Ovesen.
Kirstine Roepstorff and Solvej Helweg Ovesen in conversation with Jonas Tinius.
http://moussemagazine.it/the-porosity-of-darkness-kirstine-roepstorff-2017/
Imagine yourself wrapped in darkness, losing your sense of orientation, while flickers of light refracted through an architecture of glass and the sound of disembodied voices guide you through a story of myth, archetype, and loss. The theatre of glowing darkness is one section of artist Kirstine Roepstorff’s project for the Danish Pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, but it extends further, into the deconstructed site of the neoclassical 1930s gallery and 1960s extensions by Peter Koch. Roepstorff has reconceived and reconstructed these spaces as loci of regeneration, replete with soil, plants, and woven tapestry. The pavilion itself is part of a broader project called influenza, for which the artist has assembled—in a manner mirroring the viral transmission of its subject—a learning network and consortium of creative practitioners, including curator Solvej Helweg Ovesen.
Kirstine Roepstorff and Solvej Helweg Ovesen in conversation with Jonas Tinius.
http://moussemagazine.it/the-porosity-of-darkness-kirstine-roepstorff-2017/
CfP, Contemporary Art and/in the Ethnographic Museum, Panel at 4th Major RAI Conference 'Art, Materiality and Representation', 1-3 June 2018 at the British Museum
The Future of Anthropological Representation: Contemporary Art and/in the Ethnographic Museum
Convened by Dr Jonas Tinius (CARMAH/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Interactions between ethnographic museums and contemporary art have been contentious; while artists have become more sensitised to anthropological issues in recent years and many museums worldwide have invited artistic interventions in their collections, many see these exchanges as short-lived, superficial and appropriative responses to a deeper crisis of representation and legitimation. This panel investigates which possible other futures of this relation between ethnographic museums (and their collections) and contemporary art are imaginable, and which histories or traditions of this exchange have preceded the present situation.
Read the full panel proposal and propose your paper until 8 January 2018 via the link below:
http://nomadit.co.uk/…/rai2…/conferencesuite.php/panels/6103
Download the full call here: https://www.academia.edu/34448829/CfP_The_Future_of_Anthropological_Representation_Contemporary_Art_and_in_the_Ethnographic_Museum
The Future of Anthropological Representation: Contemporary Art and/in the Ethnographic Museum
Convened by Dr Jonas Tinius (CARMAH/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Interactions between ethnographic museums and contemporary art have been contentious; while artists have become more sensitised to anthropological issues in recent years and many museums worldwide have invited artistic interventions in their collections, many see these exchanges as short-lived, superficial and appropriative responses to a deeper crisis of representation and legitimation. This panel investigates which possible other futures of this relation between ethnographic museums (and their collections) and contemporary art are imaginable, and which histories or traditions of this exchange have preceded the present situation.
Read the full panel proposal and propose your paper until 8 January 2018 via the link below:
http://nomadit.co.uk/…/rai2…/conferencesuite.php/panels/6103
Download the full call here: https://www.academia.edu/34448829/CfP_The_Future_of_Anthropological_Representation_Contemporary_Art_and_in_the_Ethnographic_Museum
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'Andere Kunst': Vortrag auf dem Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Phänomenologische Forschung, FernUniversität in Hagen, 13.- 16. September 2017
Am Freitag halte ich an der FernUniversität in Hagen auf Einladung einen Vortrag über über Identitätspolitik, Alterität und "Andere Kunst: ethnografische Perspektiven auf ein politisiertes Feld" in der Sektion VIII: Kunst – Medien – Politik geleitet von Prof. Christian Grüny Wer Interesse hat, kann den Kongress verfolgen bei ET AL. - Ein Blog für phänomenologische Philosophie. Link zum Kongress: http://temp.phaenundpolitik.de Link zum Blog: et-al.ophen |
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Aufführungsanalyse vs. Ethnografie? Workshop zur Transdisziplinarität von Analysemethoden in der Theaterwissenschaft, JGU Mainz, 13 September 2017
Am Mittwoch diskutiere ich mit den Kollegen Prof. Matthias Warstat (FU Berlin) auf Einladung von Prof. Friedmann Kreuder (Mainz) und Prof. Benjamin Wihtstutz (Mainz) aktuelle Debatten zur Methode und Methodologie zwischen Theaterwissenschaft und Anthropologie. Mein Beitrag baut auf Vorträgen in München und Hildesheim zu dieser Thematik auf und ich freue mich, dass die Rolle von Ethnografie nun breiter rezipiert wird. Wer Interesse hat, meldet sich gerne für ein Manuskript des Vortrags.
Mehr Infos hier und per Email.
Am Mittwoch diskutiere ich mit den Kollegen Prof. Matthias Warstat (FU Berlin) auf Einladung von Prof. Friedmann Kreuder (Mainz) und Prof. Benjamin Wihtstutz (Mainz) aktuelle Debatten zur Methode und Methodologie zwischen Theaterwissenschaft und Anthropologie. Mein Beitrag baut auf Vorträgen in München und Hildesheim zu dieser Thematik auf und ich freue mich, dass die Rolle von Ethnografie nun breiter rezipiert wird. Wer Interesse hat, meldet sich gerne für ein Manuskript des Vortrags.
Mehr Infos hier und per Email.
Gallery Reflection #2 Art and Temporality, 7.9.2017 at Ifa Galerie
Traces, Legacies, and Futures: A Conversation on Art and Colonial Temporality
with Nora Al-Badri (artist, Berlin), Silvy Chakkalakal (anthropologist, HU Berlin), Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (artist and art historian, Birmingham/London), and Jonas Tinius (anthropologist, CARMAH/HU Berlin)
What does it mean to speak of colonial legacies (in the present)? In what sense do processes, for instance, of repatriation, decolonization, and institutional critique concern a future-oriented temporal thinking? Below a few impressions from this week's event as part of the one-year programme UNTIE TO TIE: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies.
Photos: Victorial Tomaschko
Traces, Legacies, and Futures: A Conversation on Art and Colonial Temporality
with Nora Al-Badri (artist, Berlin), Silvy Chakkalakal (anthropologist, HU Berlin), Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (artist and art historian, Birmingham/London), and Jonas Tinius (anthropologist, CARMAH/HU Berlin)
What does it mean to speak of colonial legacies (in the present)? In what sense do processes, for instance, of repatriation, decolonization, and institutional critique concern a future-oriented temporal thinking? Below a few impressions from this week's event as part of the one-year programme UNTIE TO TIE: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies.
Photos: Victorial Tomaschko
'Anthropology in/and/of/with Art', Alumni Lecture, Summer Institute Cologne [SIC!] 'Belief', Sept 2017, University of Cologne
Great to come back to the Theatre Collection at the University of Cologne for an alumni lecture on my doctoral and current research projects. Organised and invited by Profs Peter W. Marx (Cologne) and Tracy C. Davis (Northwestern), the lecture will be be touching on issues of ethics and belief, collaboration and research design, curating and the current documenta14 in Athens and Kassel.
[sic!] is hosted by the Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung (TWS) of Cologne University, one of the largest archives of theatre history in Europe. Situated in the picturesque manor house Schloss Wahn, located in the suburbs of Cologne, [sic!] provides a unique setting for learning and discussion, combining gracious surroundings with facilities for daily seminars, and offering access to exceptional archival materials in proximity to one of Germany's most vibrant metropolises.
http://sic.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de
Great to come back to the Theatre Collection at the University of Cologne for an alumni lecture on my doctoral and current research projects. Organised and invited by Profs Peter W. Marx (Cologne) and Tracy C. Davis (Northwestern), the lecture will be be touching on issues of ethics and belief, collaboration and research design, curating and the current documenta14 in Athens and Kassel.
[sic!] is hosted by the Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung (TWS) of Cologne University, one of the largest archives of theatre history in Europe. Situated in the picturesque manor house Schloss Wahn, located in the suburbs of Cologne, [sic!] provides a unique setting for learning and discussion, combining gracious surroundings with facilities for daily seminars, and offering access to exceptional archival materials in proximity to one of Germany's most vibrant metropolises.
http://sic.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de
'Sparring Partners': Introduction to ifa-Gallery Reflections Series published online on Untie to Tie: On Colonial Legacies ... website
"Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on art, institutions, and curatorial practices convened by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery Berlin once per chapter, crisscrossing the overall themes and decentring the focal points of the one-year programme ‘Untie to tie: Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies’ (2017-2018) curated by the gallery’s director Alya Sebti. In this first column and introduction to the series, Jonas Tinius writes about the role of discourse and conversation, reflection and listening, in rethinking a possible dialogue between anthropology, curatorial practice, and contemporary artistic work with decolonial perspectives."
Read the full essay here.
"Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on art, institutions, and curatorial practices convened by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery Berlin once per chapter, crisscrossing the overall themes and decentring the focal points of the one-year programme ‘Untie to tie: Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies’ (2017-2018) curated by the gallery’s director Alya Sebti. In this first column and introduction to the series, Jonas Tinius writes about the role of discourse and conversation, reflection and listening, in rethinking a possible dialogue between anthropology, curatorial practice, and contemporary artistic work with decolonial perspectives."
Read the full essay here.
'Parrhesia and Autopoiesis' talk at Viron Erol Vert's Exhibition BORN IN THE PURPLE, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin 17.8.2017
In the evening on 17 August 2017, I will be speaking about forms of self-making, frank speech, and the politics of fiction in German-Turkish artist Viron Erol Vert's Porphyra Club, part of his 12-room exhibition BORN IN THE PURPLE at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin, co-curated by Didem Yazıcı and Melina Gersteman. They have put together quite an incredible discursive programme that accompanies the exhibition and speaks to its broader themes in an environment that itself criss-crosses and informs the theme of the show.
Born in The Purple is an interdisciplinary exhibition project by Berlin–Istanbul– based artist Viron Erol Vert that revolves around global urgencies including cultural supremacy, identitarian abuse and basic human rights. Vert shows 12 newly produced artistic positions in the exhibition as well as invites the public and guests to join in the Porphyra Club, a social space within the exhibition, to share thoughts, knowledge and sensuous moments. Coming from old Istanbulian family roots which blend Greek–orthodox, Arab, Levantine, Armenian and Sephardic cultures, Vert takes Istanbul’s ancient history and its recent past as focal points for Born in The Purple. His family apartment in Istanbul’s Osmanbey, one of many minority districts in the city, functions as a scenic framing of the exhibition, that unfolds itself in the 12 rooms of Kunstraum Kreuzberg/ Bethanien. Through everyday life objects, patterns, melodies, idioms, youth and childhood memories, Vert does not merely reflect on the peculiarities of the status of minorities and concepts of flexible citizenship, but also refers to major power shifts and hegemonic con- flicts the world over. The heterogenous usage of material, shapes and format in Vert ́s works reflects the diverse perspectives in a multicultural society that can be taken on an alternating reality.
More information: http://www.kunstraumkreuzberg.de
In the evening on 17 August 2017, I will be speaking about forms of self-making, frank speech, and the politics of fiction in German-Turkish artist Viron Erol Vert's Porphyra Club, part of his 12-room exhibition BORN IN THE PURPLE at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin, co-curated by Didem Yazıcı and Melina Gersteman. They have put together quite an incredible discursive programme that accompanies the exhibition and speaks to its broader themes in an environment that itself criss-crosses and informs the theme of the show.
Born in The Purple is an interdisciplinary exhibition project by Berlin–Istanbul– based artist Viron Erol Vert that revolves around global urgencies including cultural supremacy, identitarian abuse and basic human rights. Vert shows 12 newly produced artistic positions in the exhibition as well as invites the public and guests to join in the Porphyra Club, a social space within the exhibition, to share thoughts, knowledge and sensuous moments. Coming from old Istanbulian family roots which blend Greek–orthodox, Arab, Levantine, Armenian and Sephardic cultures, Vert takes Istanbul’s ancient history and its recent past as focal points for Born in The Purple. His family apartment in Istanbul’s Osmanbey, one of many minority districts in the city, functions as a scenic framing of the exhibition, that unfolds itself in the 12 rooms of Kunstraum Kreuzberg/ Bethanien. Through everyday life objects, patterns, melodies, idioms, youth and childhood memories, Vert does not merely reflect on the peculiarities of the status of minorities and concepts of flexible citizenship, but also refers to major power shifts and hegemonic con- flicts the world over. The heterogenous usage of material, shapes and format in Vert ́s works reflects the diverse perspectives in a multicultural society that can be taken on an alternating reality.
More information: http://www.kunstraumkreuzberg.de
CARMAH Public Lecture 'Objects Otherwise' Haidy Geismar (University College London) 26 June 2017, 5pm
We hereby would like to invite you to the CARMAH Public Lecture Objects Otherwise by Haidy Geismar (Anthropology, University College London) on 26 July 2017 at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin. Please find more information below. If you wish to attend, please register via carmah-conference@hu-berlin.de by 17 July 2017 (noon). As space is limited, registration is obligatory. Please bring your confirmation to registration (print-out or show on phone). Feel free to circulate the email and attached poster among interested colleagues.
This talk takes as its focus four objects from different collections that I have worked with over the past years. A box. A cloak. An Effigy. A pen. Each object opens up a host of questions about the interaction between old collections and new technologies, about processes of translation, remediation, and representation, about the legacy of nineteenth century colonialism and collecting within twenty-first century new media; and about the re-articulation of locality and cultural difference within museum technologies. How do new technologies, such as 3D-printing, scanning, social media, and new web-based interfaces alter our understandings of what a collection is, how objects encode knowledge and meaning, tell stories, and what spaces are being created for cultural differences? Here I synthesise my work over many years with ethnographic collections from the Pacific, with photography collections, and with new media, to explore the object lessons and politics of perspective that are emerging for the twenty-first century collections.
Haidy Geismar is Reader in Anthropology at University College London where she is also Vice Dean for Strategic Projects and the Curator of the UCL Ethnography Collections. Since 2000 she has worked with museum collections and communities in Vanuatu and New Zealand. Her research focuses on the contemporary resonance of historical collections, indigenous articulations of intellectual and cultural property, indigenous contemporary art, the politics of display and critical museology, and the capacity of new media to translate and remediate cultural protocols and the materiality of artefacts. She has published extensively on these issues, including 'Moving Images: John Layard, Fieldwork and Photography on Malakula since 1914' (2010, University of Hawaii Press, with Anita Herle and collaborators in Vanuatu, winner of the John Collier Prize for Anthropological work on still photography), and 'Treasured Possessions’ (2013, Duke University Press. She is in the early stages of a project looking at the skill and knowledge networks embedded within digital photography. Her keynote draws from a forthcoming book, focused on the translation of old collections into new media, entitled 'Museum Object Lessons for the Twenty-first Century'.
We hereby would like to invite you to the CARMAH Public Lecture Objects Otherwise by Haidy Geismar (Anthropology, University College London) on 26 July 2017 at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin. Please find more information below. If you wish to attend, please register via carmah-conference@hu-berlin.de by 17 July 2017 (noon). As space is limited, registration is obligatory. Please bring your confirmation to registration (print-out or show on phone). Feel free to circulate the email and attached poster among interested colleagues.
This talk takes as its focus four objects from different collections that I have worked with over the past years. A box. A cloak. An Effigy. A pen. Each object opens up a host of questions about the interaction between old collections and new technologies, about processes of translation, remediation, and representation, about the legacy of nineteenth century colonialism and collecting within twenty-first century new media; and about the re-articulation of locality and cultural difference within museum technologies. How do new technologies, such as 3D-printing, scanning, social media, and new web-based interfaces alter our understandings of what a collection is, how objects encode knowledge and meaning, tell stories, and what spaces are being created for cultural differences? Here I synthesise my work over many years with ethnographic collections from the Pacific, with photography collections, and with new media, to explore the object lessons and politics of perspective that are emerging for the twenty-first century collections.
Haidy Geismar is Reader in Anthropology at University College London where she is also Vice Dean for Strategic Projects and the Curator of the UCL Ethnography Collections. Since 2000 she has worked with museum collections and communities in Vanuatu and New Zealand. Her research focuses on the contemporary resonance of historical collections, indigenous articulations of intellectual and cultural property, indigenous contemporary art, the politics of display and critical museology, and the capacity of new media to translate and remediate cultural protocols and the materiality of artefacts. She has published extensively on these issues, including 'Moving Images: John Layard, Fieldwork and Photography on Malakula since 1914' (2010, University of Hawaii Press, with Anita Herle and collaborators in Vanuatu, winner of the John Collier Prize for Anthropological work on still photography), and 'Treasured Possessions’ (2013, Duke University Press. She is in the early stages of a project looking at the skill and knowledge networks embedded within digital photography. Her keynote draws from a forthcoming book, focused on the translation of old collections into new media, entitled 'Museum Object Lessons for the Twenty-first Century'.
Interdisziplinäre Forschungswerkstatt, Bühne des Wissens, Open Lab? Strategien der Präsentation von Wissenschaft im Museum
In dieser Querdenken Sitzung, organisiert von Jonas Tinius (CARMAH), wollen wir uns folgender Frage widmen: Wie stellen wir Wissenschaft dar, und für wen? Dabei wollen wir uns dieser Thematik aus der Perspektive der Zusammenarbeit zwischen (Europäischer) Ethnologie und Ausstellungspraxis annähern, auch um zu reflektieren, welche Perspektiven auf und Schnittmengen mit anderen Repräsentationsformaten der Wissenschaft sich eventuell jenseits der musealen Ausstellungspraxis ergeben. Wir freue uns auf rege Diskussion mit euch, folgend auf Inputs von Joachim Kallinich, Leonore Scholze-Irrlitz, Friedrich von Bose und Margareta von Oswald. Für mehr Informationen, schaut auf die Website des Instituts, wo ihr auch mehr Informationen zum Institutskolloquium findet, das in diesem Semester (SS2017) von CARMAH (Jonas Tinius) und STS Labor (Martina Klausner) organisiert wird. Immer Dienstags, 18.00h (c.t.) im Raum 311 des Instituts für Europäische Ethnologie der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/termine/institutskolloquium-sose17-13
In dieser Querdenken Sitzung, organisiert von Jonas Tinius (CARMAH), wollen wir uns folgender Frage widmen: Wie stellen wir Wissenschaft dar, und für wen? Dabei wollen wir uns dieser Thematik aus der Perspektive der Zusammenarbeit zwischen (Europäischer) Ethnologie und Ausstellungspraxis annähern, auch um zu reflektieren, welche Perspektiven auf und Schnittmengen mit anderen Repräsentationsformaten der Wissenschaft sich eventuell jenseits der musealen Ausstellungspraxis ergeben. Wir freue uns auf rege Diskussion mit euch, folgend auf Inputs von Joachim Kallinich, Leonore Scholze-Irrlitz, Friedrich von Bose und Margareta von Oswald. Für mehr Informationen, schaut auf die Website des Instituts, wo ihr auch mehr Informationen zum Institutskolloquium findet, das in diesem Semester (SS2017) von CARMAH (Jonas Tinius) und STS Labor (Martina Klausner) organisiert wird. Immer Dienstags, 18.00h (c.t.) im Raum 311 des Instituts für Europäische Ethnologie der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/termine/institutskolloquium-sose17-13
Szene aus der Installation "Kategorien der Unwahrhaftigkeit" des Ruhrorter-Kollektivs, Mülheim 2016 (Foto: Franziska Götzen)
gallery reflection #1 Urban Space and Diasporic Formation (ifa-gallery Berlin) now online as video-documentation
Thanks to ifa-gallery and video artists Hanna Prenzel and Anike Joyce Sadiq, the video-recording of our first gallery reflection is now available on youtube and on the dedicated online platform of the annual programme of the ifa-gallery Untie to tie: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies.
Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on institutions, artistic critique, and curatorial practices moderated by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery as part of the annual programme, crisscrossing the overall themes and decentring the focal points of the annual programme Untie to tie – Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies at ifa Gallery Berlin.
A conversation between Dr Noa Ha (Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin; research fields: postcolonial urbanism, Asian diasporas in European cities; Board member of "Migrationsrat Berlin-Brandenburg"), Trang Tran Thu (Berlin Asian Film Network/Anthropologist working on Vietnamese diaspora in Berlin), Hyunsin Kim (Choreographer and Performer), and Dr Jonas Tinius (Anthropologist, CARMAH/HU Berlin).
Find more information and check out the video here or by clicking on the image below: http://untietotie.org/documentation/gallery-reflection-1/
Thanks to ifa-gallery and video artists Hanna Prenzel and Anike Joyce Sadiq, the video-recording of our first gallery reflection is now available on youtube and on the dedicated online platform of the annual programme of the ifa-gallery Untie to tie: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies.
Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on institutions, artistic critique, and curatorial practices moderated by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery as part of the annual programme, crisscrossing the overall themes and decentring the focal points of the annual programme Untie to tie – Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies at ifa Gallery Berlin.
A conversation between Dr Noa Ha (Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin; research fields: postcolonial urbanism, Asian diasporas in European cities; Board member of "Migrationsrat Berlin-Brandenburg"), Trang Tran Thu (Berlin Asian Film Network/Anthropologist working on Vietnamese diaspora in Berlin), Hyunsin Kim (Choreographer and Performer), and Dr Jonas Tinius (Anthropologist, CARMAH/HU Berlin).
Find more information and check out the video here or by clicking on the image below: http://untietotie.org/documentation/gallery-reflection-1/
Lecture at The School of Everything Symposium, Parliament of Bodies (documenta 14 public programme) in Athens, 6-7 July 2017
Next week, I'll be giving a lecture on anthropology, partiality, and decolonisation at The School of Everything in the Parliament of Bodies in Athens. This is part of the public programme convened by Paul B. Preciado, and the School is conceptualised by Joulia Strauss and curated by AthenSYN - a collective of Greek and German artists, scholars, and activists.
More information: http://www.documenta14.de/en/calendar/23511/the-school-of-everything-at-the-parliament-of-bodies
Next week, I'll be giving a lecture on anthropology, partiality, and decolonisation at The School of Everything in the Parliament of Bodies in Athens. This is part of the public programme convened by Paul B. Preciado, and the School is conceptualised by Joulia Strauss and curated by AthenSYN - a collective of Greek and German artists, scholars, and activists.
More information: http://www.documenta14.de/en/calendar/23511/the-school-of-everything-at-the-parliament-of-bodies
2017 Company of Ideas Forum ART AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE 20TH CENTURY, The Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park, Vancouver (Canada)
I am very much looking forward to this year's Company of Ideas Forum organised by Cambridge art historians Dr Vid Simoniti and Dr James Fox. It will take place on Hornby Island, also the location of the amazing Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park. My talk is entitled "After Autonomy: Art and Anthropology in Dialogue”. Below is some more information:
"At this year's forum, we will debate how artists in the 20th century interacted with other fields of inquiry. The idea that art is autonomous - accountable only to itself - was core to various conceptions of what truly modern art should be, dominating accounts as varied as those of Theodor Adorno and Clement Greenberg. Nevertheless, artists often drew inspiration from other disciplines to make their work: be it by considering mathematical theories to create geometric abstraction or by drawing on philosophy and sociology to make conceptual work. Considering art movements from both before and after the Second World War, our speakers discuss how this openness to new ideas influenced artistic ingenuity, as well as where it leaves art today."
http://rubinoffsculpturepark.org/index.php
I am very much looking forward to this year's Company of Ideas Forum organised by Cambridge art historians Dr Vid Simoniti and Dr James Fox. It will take place on Hornby Island, also the location of the amazing Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park. My talk is entitled "After Autonomy: Art and Anthropology in Dialogue”. Below is some more information:
"At this year's forum, we will debate how artists in the 20th century interacted with other fields of inquiry. The idea that art is autonomous - accountable only to itself - was core to various conceptions of what truly modern art should be, dominating accounts as varied as those of Theodor Adorno and Clement Greenberg. Nevertheless, artists often drew inspiration from other disciplines to make their work: be it by considering mathematical theories to create geometric abstraction or by drawing on philosophy and sociology to make conceptual work. Considering art movements from both before and after the Second World War, our speakers discuss how this openness to new ideas influenced artistic ingenuity, as well as where it leaves art today."
http://rubinoffsculpturepark.org/index.php
Academic Careers in Anthropology: Perspectives on/from the UK, US, and Germany. 20 June 2017 at CARMAH
Today, I organised a forum for both Free University and Humboldt University doctoral students and early career researchers of anthropology to ask questions and discuss careers in anthropology with Prof Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi (Anthropology, Rutgers, US), Prof Hansjörg Dilger (Social and Cultural Anthropology, FU Berlin), Prof Sharon Macdonald (CARMAH/IfEE, HU), Prof Jörg Niewöhner (IfEE, HU). It was great fun and very insightful. We'll run another one for students some time soon.
Today, I organised a forum for both Free University and Humboldt University doctoral students and early career researchers of anthropology to ask questions and discuss careers in anthropology with Prof Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi (Anthropology, Rutgers, US), Prof Hansjörg Dilger (Social and Cultural Anthropology, FU Berlin), Prof Sharon Macdonald (CARMAH/IfEE, HU), Prof Jörg Niewöhner (IfEE, HU). It was great fun and very insightful. We'll run another one for students some time soon.
Ethnografische Annäherungen an Theater und kuratorische Arbeit, Vortrag an der Universität Hildesheim, 14. Juni 2017
Auf Einladung von Prof. Dr. Annemarie Matzke und Prof. Dr. Matthias Rebstock halte ich am 14. Juni 2017 um 18.00h einen Vortrag mit dem Titel 'Anthropologisch denken/arbeiten/schreiben in/mit/durch die Kunst: Ethnografische Annäherungen an Theater und kuratorische Arbeit' im Rahmen des Masterseminars 'Strategien und Funktionen der Inszenierung: Kunst und Forschung' (SoSe 2017).
Auf Einladung von Prof. Dr. Annemarie Matzke und Prof. Dr. Matthias Rebstock halte ich am 14. Juni 2017 um 18.00h einen Vortrag mit dem Titel 'Anthropologisch denken/arbeiten/schreiben in/mit/durch die Kunst: Ethnografische Annäherungen an Theater und kuratorische Arbeit' im Rahmen des Masterseminars 'Strategien und Funktionen der Inszenierung: Kunst und Forschung' (SoSe 2017).
'The School of Everything', Presentation at Aneducation Programme at documenta(14), Kassel/Athens (11-13 June 2017)
Next weekend, I will be participating in a three-day project aiming to establish new curricula through transdisciplinary and decanonising thoughts from art, anthropology, academia etc. The project, conceptualised by Joulia Strauss (Avtonomia Akadimia) and curated by Sotirios Bahtsetzis (AthenSYN), will take place at the Kulturbahnhof of Kunsthochshule Kassel from 11-13 June 2017. I will be presenting a paper entitled 'Anthropology and/as the Study of Everything: Paradoxes, Potentials, and Pitfalls' on Sunday 11 June. You can find more information via the link below and this programme.
http://www.documenta14.de/en/calendar/22574/the-school-of-everything
Next weekend, I will be participating in a three-day project aiming to establish new curricula through transdisciplinary and decanonising thoughts from art, anthropology, academia etc. The project, conceptualised by Joulia Strauss (Avtonomia Akadimia) and curated by Sotirios Bahtsetzis (AthenSYN), will take place at the Kulturbahnhof of Kunsthochshule Kassel from 11-13 June 2017. I will be presenting a paper entitled 'Anthropology and/as the Study of Everything: Paradoxes, Potentials, and Pitfalls' on Sunday 11 June. You can find more information via the link below and this programme.
http://www.documenta14.de/en/calendar/22574/the-school-of-everything
'The Stranger in Me' - Book of conversations with Roberto Ciulli (5 June 2017)
On Monday, 5 June 2017, we filmed a three-hour long interview with renowned Italian-born theatre director Roberto Ciulli on migration, alterity, and acting. It will form part of a forthcoming book with Alexander Verlag on the director, based on conversations between him and me, which focuses on the anthropological aspects of theatre.
On Monday, 5 June 2017, we filmed a three-hour long interview with renowned Italian-born theatre director Roberto Ciulli on migration, alterity, and acting. It will form part of a forthcoming book with Alexander Verlag on the director, based on conversations between him and me, which focuses on the anthropological aspects of theatre.
Photograph taken by Dijana Brnic at Ciulli's office in the Theater an der Ruhr, 5.6.2017
PREMIERE: ICH HIELT IN MEINEN ARMEN DAS UNMÖGLICHE, 3. Juni 2017, Mülheim an der Ruhr/Theater an der Ruhr
This Saturday, the fifth year of incredible performances and installations of the research, art, and theatre project RUHRORTER at the Theater an der Ruhr is premiering in Mülheim an der Ruhr with the performance ICH HIELT IN MEINEN ARMEN DAS UNMÖGLICHE (as well as another legendary party) in the abandoned postindustrial complex on Ruhrorterstraße. I've learned so much accompanying the project since it's inception in late 2012/2013 and it's been eye-opening to engage with its critique of how the problematic aspects of Germany's patronising 'Welcome Culture' seep into documentary and authenticating applied theatre projects. Come along to the other performances and installation views, all on the project's website.
http://www.ruhrorter.com/projekte.html
This Saturday, the fifth year of incredible performances and installations of the research, art, and theatre project RUHRORTER at the Theater an der Ruhr is premiering in Mülheim an der Ruhr with the performance ICH HIELT IN MEINEN ARMEN DAS UNMÖGLICHE (as well as another legendary party) in the abandoned postindustrial complex on Ruhrorterstraße. I've learned so much accompanying the project since it's inception in late 2012/2013 and it's been eye-opening to engage with its critique of how the problematic aspects of Germany's patronising 'Welcome Culture' seep into documentary and authenticating applied theatre projects. Come along to the other performances and installation views, all on the project's website.
http://www.ruhrorter.com/projekte.html
Book launch, artist talk, panel discussion with Mario Rizzi, Solvej Helweg Ovesen, Charlotte Bank, Souad Abbas, and Jonas Tinius. BARE LIVES - Galerie Wedding 1 June 2017
Within the context of the exhibition BARE LIVES by Mario Rizzi within the frame of UP (Unsustainable Privileges), curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (28. April – 10. Juni 2017).
During this artist talk and book presentation on the exhibition BARE LIVES by Mario Rizzi, we will be discussing hidden stories and consequences of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ and how they entangled individual political lives and wider geopolitics of the region. What does it mean to be an activist woman and single mother, whose story has been written out of the official narrative of the Tunisian revolution? With reference to the exhibition and book BARE LIVES (2017), we will also discuss the role of women in conflict, as refugees, and as activists and artists more generally. How does one approach the histories and presences of the Yazidi women portrayed by Mario Rizzi? What role do women play in the organization of the everyday in states of exception and camps? How do we reflect our privileges to have a place to work, to live – an everyday? How does one depict the conflicting and unsustainable privileges of refugees in permanent camps vs. sedentary urban dwellers in a city like Berlin? In what ways do poetry and art relate to social change or to mobilising solidarity among the excluded, migrants, or exiled? We welcome you all to a discussion including artistic, anthropological, and activist perspectives from Syria, the Arab diaspora, and Germany. The panelists will be discussing the ongoing exhibition BARE LIVES but also draw on content from the newly released book by the same title, which accompanies the exhibition and contains contributions by Ramy Al Asheq, Charlotte Bank, Tania Canas, Hamid Dabashi, Pia Lauro, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Solvej Helweg Ovesen, and Jonas Tinius. The book is published in collaboration with Archive Books. (www.archivebooks.org)
http://galeriewedding.de/bare-lives-artist-talk/
Within the context of the exhibition BARE LIVES by Mario Rizzi within the frame of UP (Unsustainable Privileges), curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (28. April – 10. Juni 2017).
During this artist talk and book presentation on the exhibition BARE LIVES by Mario Rizzi, we will be discussing hidden stories and consequences of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ and how they entangled individual political lives and wider geopolitics of the region. What does it mean to be an activist woman and single mother, whose story has been written out of the official narrative of the Tunisian revolution? With reference to the exhibition and book BARE LIVES (2017), we will also discuss the role of women in conflict, as refugees, and as activists and artists more generally. How does one approach the histories and presences of the Yazidi women portrayed by Mario Rizzi? What role do women play in the organization of the everyday in states of exception and camps? How do we reflect our privileges to have a place to work, to live – an everyday? How does one depict the conflicting and unsustainable privileges of refugees in permanent camps vs. sedentary urban dwellers in a city like Berlin? In what ways do poetry and art relate to social change or to mobilising solidarity among the excluded, migrants, or exiled? We welcome you all to a discussion including artistic, anthropological, and activist perspectives from Syria, the Arab diaspora, and Germany. The panelists will be discussing the ongoing exhibition BARE LIVES but also draw on content from the newly released book by the same title, which accompanies the exhibition and contains contributions by Ramy Al Asheq, Charlotte Bank, Tania Canas, Hamid Dabashi, Pia Lauro, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Solvej Helweg Ovesen, and Jonas Tinius. The book is published in collaboration with Archive Books. (www.archivebooks.org)
http://galeriewedding.de/bare-lives-artist-talk/
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Arjun Appadurai: Corruption and Scale. SS 2017 Colloquium.
On Tuesday, 23 May 2017, we are hosting Prof Arjun Appadurai (NYU/IfEE) as part of our summer semester series MODES OF RELATING, which I jointly co-organise on behalf of CARMAH with the STS Lab. Appadurai will be speaking about CORRUPTION AND SCALE: NOTES ON INDIA AND BEYOND. All are welcome, but please do come early as seats are limited. We start at 6pm (c.t.) https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/institut/kolloquium |
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Beobachtung und/als Methode. Perspektiven aus der Kunst und (Natur)Wissenschaft. Kolloquium, 16. Mai 2017
Tuesday, 17 May 2017 at 6pm, I am organising a seminar on OBSERVATION AND/AS METHOD with perspectives on the arts and (natural) sciences as part of our summer semester series MODES OF RELATING. Prof Jens Roselt from Hildesheim will be speaking about theatre rehearsals and mutual observation, followed by two brief inputs my Prof Jörg Niewöhner on the natural sciences and myself on theatre and the arts. We encourage lively discussion. All are welcome. The event will be in German! Room 311, Institute of European Ethnology. https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/termine/institutskolloquium-sose17-5 |
Photo taken during Anne Imhof's FAUST at Venice Biennale 2017.
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"Europas Interne Andere: Ein Gespräch mit dem Kurator und Künstler Moritz Pankok" - 4.Mai 2017 - CARMAH-Reflections Beitrag
Für unsere neue Online-Plattform "Reflections" des Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) habe ich meinen ersten Eintrag verfasst. Aufbauend auf einem Interview mit Moritz Pankok, Kurator der professionellen Galerie Kai Dikhas für zeitgenössische Kunst der Roma und Sinti und Großneffen des Malers und Bildhauers Otto Pankok, geht es darin um Fragen der Repräsentation von Minderheiten in Museen und Galerien heute sowie um die politische Rolle der Kunst als Erinnerungspraxis.
http://www.carmah.berlin/reflections/internal-others/
Für unsere neue Online-Plattform "Reflections" des Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) habe ich meinen ersten Eintrag verfasst. Aufbauend auf einem Interview mit Moritz Pankok, Kurator der professionellen Galerie Kai Dikhas für zeitgenössische Kunst der Roma und Sinti und Großneffen des Malers und Bildhauers Otto Pankok, geht es darin um Fragen der Repräsentation von Minderheiten in Museen und Galerien heute sowie um die politische Rolle der Kunst als Erinnerungspraxis.
http://www.carmah.berlin/reflections/internal-others/
Moritz Pankok in der Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin-Kreuzberg
Gallery Reflections Series #1 - ifa-gallery Berlin, 4 May 2017
Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on institutions, artistic critique, and curatorial practices moderated by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery as part of the annual programme, crisscrossing the overall themes and decentring the focal points of the annual programme Untie to tie: Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies at IFA-Galerie Berlin
gallery reflections #1 Urban Decolonisation and Diasporic Formations
Thursday, 4 May 2017 - 7pm
http://untietotie.org
A conversation between Dr Noa Ha (Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin; research fields: postcolonial urbanism, asian diasporas in European cities; Board member of "Migrationsrat Berlin-Brandenburg"), Trang Tran Thu (Berlin Asian Film Network/Anthropologist working on Vietnamese diaspora in Berlin), Hyunsin Kim (Choreographer and Performer), and Dr Jonas Tinius (Anthropologist, CARMAH/HU Berlin).
Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on institutions, artistic critique, and curatorial practices moderated by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery as part of the annual programme, crisscrossing the overall themes and decentring the focal points of the annual programme Untie to tie: Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies at IFA-Galerie Berlin
gallery reflections #1 Urban Decolonisation and Diasporic Formations
Thursday, 4 May 2017 - 7pm
http://untietotie.org
A conversation between Dr Noa Ha (Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin; research fields: postcolonial urbanism, asian diasporas in European cities; Board member of "Migrationsrat Berlin-Brandenburg"), Trang Tran Thu (Berlin Asian Film Network/Anthropologist working on Vietnamese diaspora in Berlin), Hyunsin Kim (Choreographer and Performer), and Dr Jonas Tinius (Anthropologist, CARMAH/HU Berlin).
Gabby Miller, a Vietnamese-American artist, travelled on a cargo containership across the pacific to Vietnam. Her first solo-ehibition took place in late 2015 in Hanoi, entitled CROSSING/ĐI XUYÊN. The photograph is taken from that exhibition, in which Gabby engages with the mobility of humans, goods, and capital across the sea. Among other things, it points to the geopolitical and economic dynamics which inform and mark perspectives and biographies of artists of colour.
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Department Seminar Series,
Dept. of European Ethnology Berlin For this year's summer semester (April-July 2017), I am organising the so-called Institutskolloquium or Department Seminar Series with Dr Martina Klausner at the Department of European Ethnology. The series attends to methodologies in and for a contemporary anthropology. While “modes of relating” may have always been central for anthropological research – we might think about classic kinship analyses, the gift, or the Melanesian ‘dividual’ –, we would like to ask how emergent phenomena of the contemporary ask for specific forms of relating. What methodologies have been developed in such an anthropology concerned with ‘the contemporary’, and which ones are emerging? 18.04.17: Introduction: Modes of Relating Martina Klausner, Sharon Macdonald, Jörg Niewöhner, Jonas Tinius Full programme and poster online here |
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Opening, Ruhrorter Salon, 15 April 2017, Ringlokschuppen Mülheim
We're very excited to launch the Ruhrorter Salon, a new series of talks with migrant and refugee artists, activists, scholars or those working closely on the field. They are part of the 2017 Ruhrorter project and will be taking place in various locations in the postindustrial urban landscape in the Ruhr Valley.
Im nunmehr fünften Jahr erarbeitet RUHRORTER Theater- und Kunstprojekte mit Geflüchteten in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Unter dem Titel ‚Die Figur des Geflüchteten: Überlegungen zur politischen Rolle von Flucht und Fiktion’ stellen Dr. Jonas Tinius (Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) und Alexander Weinstock (Neuere Deutsche Literatur, Universität zu Köln) am 15.04.2017 die Programmatik und Arbeitsweise von RUHRORTER vor. Sie sprechen über die Rolle von Bildern und die Verantwortung von Kunst und Theater, den spezifischen Umgang mit eigenen und fremden Geschichten, die auf die Bühne gebracht werden und das damit verbundene politische Ziel von RUHRORTER: Stereotypen und Stigmatisierungen mit den Mitteln der Kunst entgegenzuwirken.
Die Veranstaltung ist der Auftakt zum RUHRORTER SALON, einer Reihe von Vorträgen, Präsentationen und Diskussionsrunden, die Aspekte der Arbeit von RUHRORTER aufgreift. Im Dialog mit geflohenen und in Deutschland lebenden KünstlerInnen, AktivistInnen und WissenschaftlerInnen, werden an verschiedenen Orten im städtischen Raum Themen wie Flucht und Migration, Kunst und politische Arbeit, Bürokratie und Asylrecht verhandelt und diskutiert. Der Eintritt zu allen Veranstaltungen ist frei und versteht sich als Einladung an ein breites Publikum, mit RUHRORTER und den eingeladenen Gästen in den Dialog zu treten und gemeinsam die künstlerische Arbeit mit Geflüchteten Menschen kritisch zu diskutieren.
15.04.2017 - 19:30 Uhr
Ort: dezentrale, Leineweberstr. 15-17, Mülheim an der Ruhr
More on here soon: www.ruhrorter.com
We're very excited to launch the Ruhrorter Salon, a new series of talks with migrant and refugee artists, activists, scholars or those working closely on the field. They are part of the 2017 Ruhrorter project and will be taking place in various locations in the postindustrial urban landscape in the Ruhr Valley.
Im nunmehr fünften Jahr erarbeitet RUHRORTER Theater- und Kunstprojekte mit Geflüchteten in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Unter dem Titel ‚Die Figur des Geflüchteten: Überlegungen zur politischen Rolle von Flucht und Fiktion’ stellen Dr. Jonas Tinius (Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) und Alexander Weinstock (Neuere Deutsche Literatur, Universität zu Köln) am 15.04.2017 die Programmatik und Arbeitsweise von RUHRORTER vor. Sie sprechen über die Rolle von Bildern und die Verantwortung von Kunst und Theater, den spezifischen Umgang mit eigenen und fremden Geschichten, die auf die Bühne gebracht werden und das damit verbundene politische Ziel von RUHRORTER: Stereotypen und Stigmatisierungen mit den Mitteln der Kunst entgegenzuwirken.
Die Veranstaltung ist der Auftakt zum RUHRORTER SALON, einer Reihe von Vorträgen, Präsentationen und Diskussionsrunden, die Aspekte der Arbeit von RUHRORTER aufgreift. Im Dialog mit geflohenen und in Deutschland lebenden KünstlerInnen, AktivistInnen und WissenschaftlerInnen, werden an verschiedenen Orten im städtischen Raum Themen wie Flucht und Migration, Kunst und politische Arbeit, Bürokratie und Asylrecht verhandelt und diskutiert. Der Eintritt zu allen Veranstaltungen ist frei und versteht sich als Einladung an ein breites Publikum, mit RUHRORTER und den eingeladenen Gästen in den Dialog zu treten und gemeinsam die künstlerische Arbeit mit Geflüchteten Menschen kritisch zu diskutieren.
15.04.2017 - 19:30 Uhr
Ort: dezentrale, Leineweberstr. 15-17, Mülheim an der Ruhr
More on here soon: www.ruhrorter.com
Social Anthropology Department Seminar at St Andrews, Scotland
On 13 April 2017, I will be giving the Department Seminar in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, entitled 'An Anthropology of (German) Theatre: Artistic Institutions as Ethical Traditions' and I will be discussing my doctoral research and the book project following from it. From 11-1, Social Anthropology Seminar Room (United Colleges Room 50).
In this talk, I explore two possibilities of thinking about traditions, based on ethnographic fieldwork with a contemporary public German theatre. Recognised by the UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, German public theatres constitute a centuries-old infrastructure that has undergone many transformations during the country’s turbulent modern history. Romantic, nationalist, and socialist notions of self-formation (Bildung) through art have not only influenced the canon of German dramatic literature and the modern Humboldtian notion of education; they have also provided the backbone for a German theatre tradition, which regards both the practice and the institution of theatre as a mode for and space of political self-cultivation. I examine how this ‘national’ tradition has influenced the emergence of a set of artistic values common in German public theatre revolving around autonomy, the individual, and self-cultivation. Based on my ethnographic study of an artist-run municipal theatre in the post-industrial Ruhr Valley, however, I also explore to what extent it is both possible and necessary to conceive of an individual institution as an ethical tradition. In doing so, I hope to shed light on anthropological approaches to contemporary Germany, theatre and artistic institutions, as well as issues of scale in studying traditions between historical value and ethnographic context.
Link to event: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/anthropology/events/?eventid=814
On 13 April 2017, I will be giving the Department Seminar in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, entitled 'An Anthropology of (German) Theatre: Artistic Institutions as Ethical Traditions' and I will be discussing my doctoral research and the book project following from it. From 11-1, Social Anthropology Seminar Room (United Colleges Room 50).
In this talk, I explore two possibilities of thinking about traditions, based on ethnographic fieldwork with a contemporary public German theatre. Recognised by the UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, German public theatres constitute a centuries-old infrastructure that has undergone many transformations during the country’s turbulent modern history. Romantic, nationalist, and socialist notions of self-formation (Bildung) through art have not only influenced the canon of German dramatic literature and the modern Humboldtian notion of education; they have also provided the backbone for a German theatre tradition, which regards both the practice and the institution of theatre as a mode for and space of political self-cultivation. I examine how this ‘national’ tradition has influenced the emergence of a set of artistic values common in German public theatre revolving around autonomy, the individual, and self-cultivation. Based on my ethnographic study of an artist-run municipal theatre in the post-industrial Ruhr Valley, however, I also explore to what extent it is both possible and necessary to conceive of an individual institution as an ethical tradition. In doing so, I hope to shed light on anthropological approaches to contemporary Germany, theatre and artistic institutions, as well as issues of scale in studying traditions between historical value and ethnographic context.
Link to event: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/anthropology/events/?eventid=814
Design Anthropology Workshop at Harvard University (April 2017)
On 4 April 2017, I'll be presenting a paper entitled 'BACK TO THE FUTURE HERITAGE: Critical Notes on Anthropology, Design, and Urban Space' at this exciting workshop at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University: 'Design Anthropology: Landscapes and Cities', organised by Prof Steve Caton and Gareth Doherty (April 3-4, 2017)
Participants: George Marcus, Steve Caton, Setha Low, Moises Lino e Silva, Jonas Tinius, Thomas Binder, Galen Cranz, Dana Cuff, Namita Dharia, Gareth Doherty, Albena Yaneva and others
"While most publications on design anthropology have been at the scale of objects, this gathering focuses on landscape architectural and urban planning processes and the challenges of incorporating anthropological methods at the larger scale."
http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/dsgn_anthro
On 4 April 2017, I'll be presenting a paper entitled 'BACK TO THE FUTURE HERITAGE: Critical Notes on Anthropology, Design, and Urban Space' at this exciting workshop at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University: 'Design Anthropology: Landscapes and Cities', organised by Prof Steve Caton and Gareth Doherty (April 3-4, 2017)
Participants: George Marcus, Steve Caton, Setha Low, Moises Lino e Silva, Jonas Tinius, Thomas Binder, Galen Cranz, Dana Cuff, Namita Dharia, Gareth Doherty, Albena Yaneva and others
"While most publications on design anthropology have been at the scale of objects, this gathering focuses on landscape architectural and urban planning processes and the challenges of incorporating anthropological methods at the larger scale."
http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/dsgn_anthro
Puzzling Homes & Momentary Dwellers: Poster and Presentation at SIEF 2017 Congress in Göttingen, Germany (26-30 March 2017)
At the 13th Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), "Ways of Dwelling, Crisis – Craft – Creativity" (26-30 March 2016), I will be presenting a paper entitled "Momentary dwellers: experimental art-ethnography collaborations" in a panel on "Experimentation with methods in critical affective research (Panel Body07). Together with my CARMAH colleagues from TRACES, artist Tal Adler and art historian Anna Szöke, I will also be presenting a poster entitled "Puzzling Homes: Narrating European Crisis and Future Heritage" on Monday and Tuesday.
At the 13th Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), "Ways of Dwelling, Crisis – Craft – Creativity" (26-30 March 2016), I will be presenting a paper entitled "Momentary dwellers: experimental art-ethnography collaborations" in a panel on "Experimentation with methods in critical affective research (Panel Body07). Together with my CARMAH colleagues from TRACES, artist Tal Adler and art historian Anna Szöke, I will also be presenting a poster entitled "Puzzling Homes: Narrating European Crisis and Future Heritage" on Monday and Tuesday.
FUTURE PERFECT: A Dialogue on Mobility, Precarity & Temporality (Ghent, 19 March 17)
Together with performing artist Wanja van Suntum (cobratheater.cobra/Ruhrorter), I will be staging a dialogue on the potentials and pitfalls of mobility, precarity and the strange temporality of project proposals in the free performing arts scene in Germany. This is made possible thanks to an invitation by the Studies in Performing Arts and Media programme at Ghent University, in collaboration with the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the arts centre campo. DANCE NOW: Work with(out) Borders is a two-day conference at CAMPO Nieuwpoort (Ghent, Belgium) on (boundaryless) work in the contemporary dance profession, its causes, contexts and (aesthetic) repercussions. Confirmed lectures by scholars from dance and performance studies, anthropology and sociology as well as artist talks: Mark Franko (Temple University), Gabriele Klein (Universität Hamburg), Gabriele Brandstetter (Freie Universität Berlin), Anusha Kedhar (Colorado College), Helen Thomas (Trinity Laban College), Rudi Laermans (KU Leuven), Dunja Njaradi (University of The Arts Belgrade), Jonas Tinius (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), Wanja van Suntum (performing artist), Igor Koruga (performing artist) and Delphine Hesters (Flanders Arts Institute)
Full program and more info here: http://www.ugent.be/lw/kunstwetenschappen/en/research-groups/spam/conferences/dance-now.htm
Together with performing artist Wanja van Suntum (cobratheater.cobra/Ruhrorter), I will be staging a dialogue on the potentials and pitfalls of mobility, precarity and the strange temporality of project proposals in the free performing arts scene in Germany. This is made possible thanks to an invitation by the Studies in Performing Arts and Media programme at Ghent University, in collaboration with the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the arts centre campo. DANCE NOW: Work with(out) Borders is a two-day conference at CAMPO Nieuwpoort (Ghent, Belgium) on (boundaryless) work in the contemporary dance profession, its causes, contexts and (aesthetic) repercussions. Confirmed lectures by scholars from dance and performance studies, anthropology and sociology as well as artist talks: Mark Franko (Temple University), Gabriele Klein (Universität Hamburg), Gabriele Brandstetter (Freie Universität Berlin), Anusha Kedhar (Colorado College), Helen Thomas (Trinity Laban College), Rudi Laermans (KU Leuven), Dunja Njaradi (University of The Arts Belgrade), Jonas Tinius (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), Wanja van Suntum (performing artist), Igor Koruga (performing artist) and Delphine Hesters (Flanders Arts Institute)
Full program and more info here: http://www.ugent.be/lw/kunstwetenschappen/en/research-groups/spam/conferences/dance-now.htm
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DESIGN, FAILURE AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF RISK - Video lecture Arjun Appadurai
For those unable to make it to our event in Berlin on 10 January 2017, you can rewatch this talk by Professor Arjun Appadurai, in conversation with Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Jonas Tinius in the SAVVY Contemporary media archive. https://vimeo.com/205361947 |
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Benefiz-Vortrag: 'Die Figur des Geflüchteten' (Köln, 21.2.2017)
Am 21.02.2017 um 19h findet die Gemälde-Auktion des Projektes "Die Sprache der Bilder. Flucht in Kunst und Medien" im FORUM Volkshochschule im Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum statt. Das Gemälde des Künstlers Gara Rasul aus der Serie "Menschenbild in Blau" wird zum Startgebot von 200 Euro aufgerufen. Aus den Einnahmen werden kreative Kurse für Geflüchtete mit Studierenden der Universität zu Köln finanziert. Die Auktion folgt auf den letzten Vortrag der dazugehörigen Vortragsreihe von Dr. Jonas Tinius (HU Berlin) und Alexander Weinstock (Universität zu Köln) über „Die Figur des Geflüchteten - Perspektiven des nicht-dokumentarischen Theaters am Beispiel von Ruhrorter“. Alle Vortragenden verzichten im Zuge dieses Benefizprojektes auf ihr Honorar. http://tinyurl.com/zpwly4z |
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Book launch: Applied Theatre (Theater der Zeit), 2017
On 9 February 2017, Theater der Zeit launches a new edited collection on new positions and framings of the aesthetics applied theatre today. This is the second publication coming out of Prof. Matthias Warstat's project The Aesthetics of Applied Theatre (ERC-funded) at the FU Berlin, and I am extremely pleased to have contributed a chapter on the institutional framing and processes of subject formation in critical political theatre with refugees today. This chapter brings together insight into the ethnography of artistic institutions and recent developments in the anthropology of ethics with contemporary theatre productions in Germany. Tinius, Jonas. 2017 ‘Anthropologische Beobachtungen zu künstlerischer Subjektivierung und institutioneller Reflexivität: Das Theaterprojekt Ruhrorter mit Geflüchteten am Theater an der Ruhr’, in: Matthias Warstat et al. 2017. Applied Theatre – Frames and Positions. Berlin: Theater der Zeit, S. 205–235. Order the book and find more information here: http://www.theaterderzeit.de/buch/applied_theatre/ |
Ethnography as Method in Theatre Studies? (Talk, LMU Munich)
This coming weekend (3-4 February 2017), I will be speaking at Prof Chris Balme's conference on current methods in theatre studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich. The topic of my talk is the role ethnography has played in approaching theatre and performance, and why it has not yet become a central way to reconnect theatre studies and post-performance studies anthropology. As part of this talk, I will be arguing that ethnography functions less as a "method" than as a "series of commitments" (D Miller), and how this can reinvigorate this interdisciplinary dialogue. Collected papers will be published in a special issue of Forum Modernes Theater.
This coming weekend (3-4 February 2017), I will be speaking at Prof Chris Balme's conference on current methods in theatre studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich. The topic of my talk is the role ethnography has played in approaching theatre and performance, and why it has not yet become a central way to reconnect theatre studies and post-performance studies anthropology. As part of this talk, I will be arguing that ethnography functions less as a "method" than as a "series of commitments" (D Miller), and how this can reinvigorate this interdisciplinary dialogue. Collected papers will be published in a special issue of Forum Modernes Theater.
Editorial against Trump in Performance Philosophy Journal 2017
Vol 2.2 (2017) of the journal Performance Philosophy has now been published online and includes an amazing performative Editorial composed of replies to an open call for 1 sentence responses to the inauguration of T****. I contributed to it with a sentence from Samuel Beckett. Read the entire piece here.
Vol 2.2 (2017) of the journal Performance Philosophy has now been published online and includes an amazing performative Editorial composed of replies to an open call for 1 sentence responses to the inauguration of T****. I contributed to it with a sentence from Samuel Beckett. Read the entire piece here.
Call for Applications: 2 PhD studentships at CARMAH, HU Berlin
The Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) invites applications for 2 three-year PhD studentships, funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, starting from May 2017 or as soon as possible hereafter. The Deadline for both is 19 February 2017. For one of these two studentships (Heritage and New Media), the successful candidate will conduct research on heritage and new media, especially among Turkish and/or Vietnamese-speaking individuals and groups in Berlin. For the other studentship (Science and Citizenship), the successful candidate will conduct research in an area that intersects between the research project of Sharon Macdonald's Alexander von Humboldt professorship (Making Differences in Berlin) and the interests of the Museum of Natural History, Berlin. For more information on the posts and the application process, please visit our website here.
The Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) invites applications for 2 three-year PhD studentships, funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, starting from May 2017 or as soon as possible hereafter. The Deadline for both is 19 February 2017. For one of these two studentships (Heritage and New Media), the successful candidate will conduct research on heritage and new media, especially among Turkish and/or Vietnamese-speaking individuals and groups in Berlin. For the other studentship (Science and Citizenship), the successful candidate will conduct research in an area that intersects between the research project of Sharon Macdonald's Alexander von Humboldt professorship (Making Differences in Berlin) and the interests of the Museum of Natural History, Berlin. For more information on the posts and the application process, please visit our website here.
Call for Proposals: World Café Section of 2017 CARMAH Conference
The Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) invites early-stage career researchers to submit proposals for a World Café table by 15 February 2017. The conference is taking place at the Department of European Ethnology of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin from 26-28 July 2017. Please consult our website for more information about the call and the application forms here.
The Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) invites early-stage career researchers to submit proposals for a World Café table by 15 February 2017. The conference is taking place at the Department of European Ethnology of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin from 26-28 July 2017. Please consult our website for more information about the call and the application forms here.
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DESIGN, FAILURE AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF RISK
A Talk by Arjun Appadurai, followed by a conversation with anthropologist Jonas Tinius (HU Berlin) and curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (documenta/SAVVY Contemporary). SAVVY Contemporary, Plantagenstraße 31, Berlin-Wedding // 10 January 2017, 7pm
What is the role of promises and trust in a postfactual age? How are emerging technologies tied up to the political and economic crises of the last years? What can we learn from the role of risk-taking and failure for our political futures – and what's language got to do with it all? Professor Arjun Appadurai, one of the world's leading theorists of globalisation and cultural economies, will be discussing crises, economies, and political language with S A V V Y Contemporary's director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and anthropologist Jonas Tinius (HU Berlin). Appadurai is author of seminal texts, including Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (1996), editor of The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1986), and has been at the forefront of theorizing the relation between cultural creativity, global economies, and political emergence. This lecture will explore the financial crises of the last few decades in the advanced economies and beyond to look at how failure is part of the logic of design and risk in the world of emerging technologies in finance and beyond. This presentation is part of an ongoing research project on failure, which explores how failure is a globally variable and circulating idea which can reveal far more than the study of success. The event is a cooperation between SAVVY Contemporary, the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH), and the Anthropologies of Art Network (A/A).
A Talk by Arjun Appadurai, followed by a conversation with anthropologist Jonas Tinius (HU Berlin) and curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (documenta/SAVVY Contemporary). SAVVY Contemporary, Plantagenstraße 31, Berlin-Wedding // 10 January 2017, 7pm
What is the role of promises and trust in a postfactual age? How are emerging technologies tied up to the political and economic crises of the last years? What can we learn from the role of risk-taking and failure for our political futures – and what's language got to do with it all? Professor Arjun Appadurai, one of the world's leading theorists of globalisation and cultural economies, will be discussing crises, economies, and political language with S A V V Y Contemporary's director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and anthropologist Jonas Tinius (HU Berlin). Appadurai is author of seminal texts, including Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (1996), editor of The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1986), and has been at the forefront of theorizing the relation between cultural creativity, global economies, and political emergence. This lecture will explore the financial crises of the last few decades in the advanced economies and beyond to look at how failure is part of the logic of design and risk in the world of emerging technologies in finance and beyond. This presentation is part of an ongoing research project on failure, which explores how failure is a globally variable and circulating idea which can reveal far more than the study of success. The event is a cooperation between SAVVY Contemporary, the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH), and the Anthropologies of Art Network (A/A).
New website launched: Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH)
If you're wondering what I've been up to since moving to Berlin in July 2016, take a look at this great new site we've just launched for our Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH), where I'm delighted to work on some exciting projects with a set of great colleagues and many inspiring interlocutors in Berlin's galleries and art spaces.
--> www.carmah.berlin
If you're wondering what I've been up to since moving to Berlin in July 2016, take a look at this great new site we've just launched for our Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH), where I'm delighted to work on some exciting projects with a set of great colleagues and many inspiring interlocutors in Berlin's galleries and art spaces.
--> www.carmah.berlin
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Theatre and Statelessness: New Article in Critical Stages Journal
An exciting new special issue of the journal Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques has just been released on Theatre and Statelessness, edited by Steve Wilmer and Azadeh Sharifi. My article in the journal reflects on continuities and ruptures in how theatre engages with notions of otherness in Germany, focusing on negotiations of authenticity and alterity at the Theater an der Ruhr and the refugee project RUHRORTER. 'Authenticity and Otherness: Reflecting Statelessness in German Postmigrant Theatre' (14/2016) http://www.critical-stages.org/14/ |
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Anthropologie, Ethnografie und Kuratieren (HU Berlin, 13.12.2016)
Kuratieren gilt als eine der zentralen Museumspraktiken, herkömmlich bezogen auf die Auswahl und Anordnung von Objekten in Ausstellungen. Gegenwärtig jedoch erfährt der Begriff eine Entgrenzung und migriert in andere Felder. So wird unter anderem Kuratieren als Ergänzung bzw. auch als Ersatz ethnografischer Wissensproduktion thematisiert („anthropologist-as-curator"). Doch dabei wird die Praxis auch kritisiert: Leiden wir an einer Kuratitis? Ist wirklich alles und jedes kuratierbar? Obgleich Kuratieren und Ethnografieren häufig in einem Atemzug genannt werden, bilden ethnografische Untersuchungen kuratorischer Wissensproduktionen eine Forschungslücke.
Im Museumslabor haben wir dies zum Anlass genommen, uns mit dem Verhältnis zwischen den beiden Praktiken näher auseinanderzusetzen. In diesem Kolloquium gehen wir mit Beispielen aus unseren aktuellen Forschungen folgenden Fragen nach: Welches Erkenntnispotenzial besitzen Ethnografien von kuratorischen Prozessen?
Wie können kuratorische Praktiken mittels ethnografischer Methoden reflexiv erweitert werden? Inwiefern kann Kuratieren als ethnografische Methode verstanden werden? Welche Möglichkeiten eröffnen sich, was gerät aus dem Blick? Mit Beiträgen von Christine Gerbich, Anna Schäffler, Franka Schneider, Jonas Tinius und Margareta von Oswald.
Mehr dazu auf der Website des Instituts für Europäische Ethnologie der HU Berlin hier.
Kuratieren gilt als eine der zentralen Museumspraktiken, herkömmlich bezogen auf die Auswahl und Anordnung von Objekten in Ausstellungen. Gegenwärtig jedoch erfährt der Begriff eine Entgrenzung und migriert in andere Felder. So wird unter anderem Kuratieren als Ergänzung bzw. auch als Ersatz ethnografischer Wissensproduktion thematisiert („anthropologist-as-curator"). Doch dabei wird die Praxis auch kritisiert: Leiden wir an einer Kuratitis? Ist wirklich alles und jedes kuratierbar? Obgleich Kuratieren und Ethnografieren häufig in einem Atemzug genannt werden, bilden ethnografische Untersuchungen kuratorischer Wissensproduktionen eine Forschungslücke.
Im Museumslabor haben wir dies zum Anlass genommen, uns mit dem Verhältnis zwischen den beiden Praktiken näher auseinanderzusetzen. In diesem Kolloquium gehen wir mit Beispielen aus unseren aktuellen Forschungen folgenden Fragen nach: Welches Erkenntnispotenzial besitzen Ethnografien von kuratorischen Prozessen?
Wie können kuratorische Praktiken mittels ethnografischer Methoden reflexiv erweitert werden? Inwiefern kann Kuratieren als ethnografische Methode verstanden werden? Welche Möglichkeiten eröffnen sich, was gerät aus dem Blick? Mit Beiträgen von Christine Gerbich, Anna Schäffler, Franka Schneider, Jonas Tinius und Margareta von Oswald.
Mehr dazu auf der Website des Instituts für Europäische Ethnologie der HU Berlin hier.
Heritage and the Politics of Recognition, Berlin 7 December 2016
My current host, the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) invites you to an exciting event in Berlin on 7 December 2016, 4-7pm at the Department of European Ethnology, Möhrenstraße 40/41, 10117 Berlin, Room 408.
Heritage and the Politics of Recognition. Recognition has become a key concept in critical heritage debates. But what does this term offer, in particular in relation to the city? Do cities have a duty to try to give recognition to diverse - all - communities via heritage? How can diverse heritage be 'gathered' and 'displayed'? Should this be only at the initiative of the people themselves, for themselves? How much does it matter if a city’s inhabitants do not identify with the place where the heritage will be saved/displayed?
The opening lecture by Prof Laurajane Smith (ANU) will be followed by talks by Gareth Millington (Department of Sociology, University of York) and David Huyssen (Department of History, University of York). Following a wine reception there will be a panel discussion also with Claudia Gemmeke (Director Department Forum, Stadtmuseum Berlin), Noa Ha (Centre for Metropolitan Studies, Technische Universität Berlin), and Mirjam Brusius (Faculty of History, Oxford University).
My current host, the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) invites you to an exciting event in Berlin on 7 December 2016, 4-7pm at the Department of European Ethnology, Möhrenstraße 40/41, 10117 Berlin, Room 408.
Heritage and the Politics of Recognition. Recognition has become a key concept in critical heritage debates. But what does this term offer, in particular in relation to the city? Do cities have a duty to try to give recognition to diverse - all - communities via heritage? How can diverse heritage be 'gathered' and 'displayed'? Should this be only at the initiative of the people themselves, for themselves? How much does it matter if a city’s inhabitants do not identify with the place where the heritage will be saved/displayed?
The opening lecture by Prof Laurajane Smith (ANU) will be followed by talks by Gareth Millington (Department of Sociology, University of York) and David Huyssen (Department of History, University of York). Following a wine reception there will be a panel discussion also with Claudia Gemmeke (Director Department Forum, Stadtmuseum Berlin), Noa Ha (Centre for Metropolitan Studies, Technische Universität Berlin), and Mirjam Brusius (Faculty of History, Oxford University).
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RAI Reviewer Meets Reviewed Seminar at the British Museum, London (UK)
On 17 November 2016, Roger Sansi (Goldsmiths) and I discussed his book Art, Anthropology and the Gift (2015, Bloomsbury) and my review of it in the JRAI. The event took place in the Anthropology Library of the British Museum, London (UK). A transcribed conversation will soon be available. Here's a link to the book, my review, and a conversation between Roger Sansi and Marilyn Strathern that I facilitated as part of the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network seminar series I co-convened at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities in Cambridge. |
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Institutskolloquium (Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, HU Berlin)
Dienstag, 15.11.2016, 18.00-20.00, Raum 311
Migration und Theater. Einige Beobachtungen zu reflexiven, künstlerischen Institutionen
Dr. Jonas Tinius (CARMaH) im Dialog mit dem Labor Migration (Regina Römhild und Manuel Liebig)
Aufbauend auf mehrjähriger Forschung an und mit öffentlichen Theaterinstitutionen und -projekten zu Geflüchteten im Ruhrgebiet und Berlin beschreibt dieser Vortrag einige Ansätze und Perspektiven auf kritische künstlerische Institutionen und deren reflexive Rolle in der post-migrantischen Gesellschaft. Im Dialog mit dem Labor Migration werden wir anschließend einige vergleichende Beobachtungen zwischen künstlerisch-politischen Ansätzen im Bereich Theater zur Diskussion stellen, die auch Fragen zu methodischer Zusammenarbeit, institutioneller Ethnografie und künstlerischer Forschung problematisieren.
https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/institut/kolloquium/poster-ik-ws16-17-ifee.pdf
Dienstag, 15.11.2016, 18.00-20.00, Raum 311
Migration und Theater. Einige Beobachtungen zu reflexiven, künstlerischen Institutionen
Dr. Jonas Tinius (CARMaH) im Dialog mit dem Labor Migration (Regina Römhild und Manuel Liebig)
Aufbauend auf mehrjähriger Forschung an und mit öffentlichen Theaterinstitutionen und -projekten zu Geflüchteten im Ruhrgebiet und Berlin beschreibt dieser Vortrag einige Ansätze und Perspektiven auf kritische künstlerische Institutionen und deren reflexive Rolle in der post-migrantischen Gesellschaft. Im Dialog mit dem Labor Migration werden wir anschließend einige vergleichende Beobachtungen zwischen künstlerisch-politischen Ansätzen im Bereich Theater zur Diskussion stellen, die auch Fragen zu methodischer Zusammenarbeit, institutioneller Ethnografie und künstlerischer Forschung problematisieren.
https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/institut/kolloquium/poster-ik-ws16-17-ifee.pdf
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JRAI Review of our book 'Anthropology, Theatre and Development' (Palgrave, 2015)
Check out the latest issue of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Volume 22, Issue 4) for a review of our edited collection Anthropology, Theatre, and Development: The Transformative Potential of Performance (Palgrave, 2015). Or click here for a copy of the pdf: REVIEW |
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Art-Ethnography Collaborations//new research site
I have been accompanying the refugee theatre and arts initiative RUHRORTER for the past three years, documenting its site-specific installations and rehearsal practices. There is now a site on the project dedicated to collaborative forms of research with talks and publications (click on LINK/PDF). Get in touch if you know of similar initiatives that we could link up.
http://www.ruhrorter.com/research.html
I have been accompanying the refugee theatre and arts initiative RUHRORTER for the past three years, documenting its site-specific installations and rehearsal practices. There is now a site on the project dedicated to collaborative forms of research with talks and publications (click on LINK/PDF). Get in touch if you know of similar initiatives that we could link up.
http://www.ruhrorter.com/research.html
Theaterarbeit mit Geflüchteten. Vortrag auf der 30. Bundestagung für Theaterpädagogik
Am nächsten Sonntag (30.10.2016) werden Wanja van Suntum (cobratheater.cobra) und ich eine performance lecture über das Theater- und Kunstprojekt mit Geflüchteten RUHRORTER auf der 30. Bundestagung für Theaterpädagogik in Eberswalde halten. Die Tagung widmet sich dem Thema "Theaterarbeit mit Geflüchteten" und findet vom 28.10.-30.10.2016 statt.
www.butinfo.de/sites/default/files/downloads/tagungsflyer_30_buta_2016.pdf
Am nächsten Sonntag (30.10.2016) werden Wanja van Suntum (cobratheater.cobra) und ich eine performance lecture über das Theater- und Kunstprojekt mit Geflüchteten RUHRORTER auf der 30. Bundestagung für Theaterpädagogik in Eberswalde halten. Die Tagung widmet sich dem Thema "Theaterarbeit mit Geflüchteten" und findet vom 28.10.-30.10.2016 statt.
www.butinfo.de/sites/default/files/downloads/tagungsflyer_30_buta_2016.pdf
Mobile Welten. Zur Migration von Dingen in transkulturellen Gesellschaften, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Am Freitag (7.11.2016) werde ich einen Vortrag halten zum Thema "Vom Informanten zum Zeitgenossen: Expertise im Kontext der künstlerischen Arbeit mit Transkulturalität und Migration am Beispiel der Feldforschung mit Theater’. Mein Vortrag ist Teil eines Panels zum wichtigen Thema "Wer lernt von wem? Von Experten, die keiner fragt" und findet im Rahmen der Konferenz Das transkulturelle Klassenzimmer: Dinge umordnen, Erfahrungen übersetzen, Bedeutungen verändern. des Verbundprojektes “Mobile Welten. Zur Migration von Dingen in transkulturellen Gesellschaften” (BMBF) statt.
Die Veranstaltung ist organisiert von Dr Sophia Prinz and Roger M. Biergel und findet im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg vom 6.–7. Oktober 2016 statt. Mehr Informationen zum spannenden Programm, u.a. mit Prof Paul Basu (SOAS) hier:
www.mobile-welten.org/files/einladung_transkulturelles_klassenzimmer.pdf
Am Freitag (7.11.2016) werde ich einen Vortrag halten zum Thema "Vom Informanten zum Zeitgenossen: Expertise im Kontext der künstlerischen Arbeit mit Transkulturalität und Migration am Beispiel der Feldforschung mit Theater’. Mein Vortrag ist Teil eines Panels zum wichtigen Thema "Wer lernt von wem? Von Experten, die keiner fragt" und findet im Rahmen der Konferenz Das transkulturelle Klassenzimmer: Dinge umordnen, Erfahrungen übersetzen, Bedeutungen verändern. des Verbundprojektes “Mobile Welten. Zur Migration von Dingen in transkulturellen Gesellschaften” (BMBF) statt.
Die Veranstaltung ist organisiert von Dr Sophia Prinz and Roger M. Biergel und findet im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg vom 6.–7. Oktober 2016 statt. Mehr Informationen zum spannenden Programm, u.a. mit Prof Paul Basu (SOAS) hier:
www.mobile-welten.org/files/einladung_transkulturelles_klassenzimmer.pdf
Ethnografisches Forschen in der Kunst (Lab, Uferstudios, Berlin)
Ich freue mich sehr, auf dem cobratheater.cobra Treffen für Wissensteilung und Forschung ein Lab zu organisieren. Thema: Ethnografisches Forschen in der Kunst. 23 und 24. September in den Uferstudios Berlin-Wedding, unterstützt von Tanzfabrik Berlin und den Uferstudios.
Hier mehr Information zu cobratheater.cobra und der Veranstaltung. Klick auf den folgenden Link zu einem Buchkapitel, dass ich zu dem Netzwerk geschrieben habe in einem Sammelband zu Prekarität und Kunst, herausgeben u.a. von Prof Pascal Gielen (Antwerpen): PDF.
http://www.cobratheatercobra.com/archiv/cobrasein-cobra/
Ich freue mich sehr, auf dem cobratheater.cobra Treffen für Wissensteilung und Forschung ein Lab zu organisieren. Thema: Ethnografisches Forschen in der Kunst. 23 und 24. September in den Uferstudios Berlin-Wedding, unterstützt von Tanzfabrik Berlin und den Uferstudios.
Hier mehr Information zu cobratheater.cobra und der Veranstaltung. Klick auf den folgenden Link zu einem Buchkapitel, dass ich zu dem Netzwerk geschrieben habe in einem Sammelband zu Prekarität und Kunst, herausgeben u.a. von Prof Pascal Gielen (Antwerpen): PDF.
http://www.cobratheatercobra.com/archiv/cobrasein-cobra/
'The charitable relation’ (Foreword)
A foreword I wrote for the exhibition catalogue 'Art as a Medium for Action', edited by Gyunel Rustamova, curated by Cinthia Willaman, has just been published with London: Langham Press. (pp.4-6).
You can read the entire catalogue here or download my foreword here or by clicking on the image.
A foreword I wrote for the exhibition catalogue 'Art as a Medium for Action', edited by Gyunel Rustamova, curated by Cinthia Willaman, has just been published with London: Langham Press. (pp.4-6).
You can read the entire catalogue here or download my foreword here or by clicking on the image.
Anthropology of Character, 1-2 Sept 2016, St Andrews (Scotland)
I am very excited to be presenting a paper entitled "Rehearsing detachment: on the cultivation of conduct and character", which draws on my fieldwork on rehearsals in professional German ensemble theatres and with refugee theatre group Ruhrorter.
Abstract: For the Scottish moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, “characters merge what usually is thought to belong to the individual man or woman and what is usually thought to belong to social roles” (After Virtue, 1981). This notion of character is informed by Aristotelian virtue ethics as much as it echoes a canonised theatrical rehearsal method first inaugurated by Constantin Stanislavski and popularised as ‘method acting’. According to this pre- Brechtian acting theory, actors are to identify with their characters as authentically as possible, aiming to merge actor with character. In this paper, I draw on fieldwork with a professional public theatre in western Germany to suggest an alternative view on the cultivation of actors’ expertise at managing the relation to characters. Rather than training to lock themselves into specific characters, this theatre understands characters as fictional tools employed to facilitate reflection on the capacity to detach and appropriate different ways of being. Being in character, then, is not a passive and essential ways of behaving, but a reflected and critical stance that minds the gap between actor and character. Being in character, then, becomes an instrument for reflecting on the acting self. Informed by the anthropology of ethics, this paper suggests various ways in which this process – described by actors in this theatre as the cultivation of conduct (or ‘Haltung’ in German) – can inform our understanding of detachment, reflexivity, and personhood. In a little nod to Adam’s circulated paper, I might even go as far as suggesting a notion of characters, minor or major, as a “repertoire of fiction” that humans more generally draw on to compose themselves on and off the daily stages of life. Perhaps then, borrowing from Lakoff and Johnson, it is not metaphors, but “characters we live by”.
Other participants at the conference include: Prof James Faubion (Keynote), Adam Reed, Alain Pottage, Liana Chua, Jon Bialecki, Huon Wardle, Tom Yarrow, Paolo Heywood, Robin Irvine, Morten Pedersen, Mat Candea, Marilyn Strathern, Matthew Engelke, Nigel Rapport, and Christos Lynteris.
Programm link to pdf here
I am very excited to be presenting a paper entitled "Rehearsing detachment: on the cultivation of conduct and character", which draws on my fieldwork on rehearsals in professional German ensemble theatres and with refugee theatre group Ruhrorter.
Abstract: For the Scottish moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, “characters merge what usually is thought to belong to the individual man or woman and what is usually thought to belong to social roles” (After Virtue, 1981). This notion of character is informed by Aristotelian virtue ethics as much as it echoes a canonised theatrical rehearsal method first inaugurated by Constantin Stanislavski and popularised as ‘method acting’. According to this pre- Brechtian acting theory, actors are to identify with their characters as authentically as possible, aiming to merge actor with character. In this paper, I draw on fieldwork with a professional public theatre in western Germany to suggest an alternative view on the cultivation of actors’ expertise at managing the relation to characters. Rather than training to lock themselves into specific characters, this theatre understands characters as fictional tools employed to facilitate reflection on the capacity to detach and appropriate different ways of being. Being in character, then, is not a passive and essential ways of behaving, but a reflected and critical stance that minds the gap between actor and character. Being in character, then, becomes an instrument for reflecting on the acting self. Informed by the anthropology of ethics, this paper suggests various ways in which this process – described by actors in this theatre as the cultivation of conduct (or ‘Haltung’ in German) – can inform our understanding of detachment, reflexivity, and personhood. In a little nod to Adam’s circulated paper, I might even go as far as suggesting a notion of characters, minor or major, as a “repertoire of fiction” that humans more generally draw on to compose themselves on and off the daily stages of life. Perhaps then, borrowing from Lakoff and Johnson, it is not metaphors, but “characters we live by”.
Other participants at the conference include: Prof James Faubion (Keynote), Adam Reed, Alain Pottage, Liana Chua, Jon Bialecki, Huon Wardle, Tom Yarrow, Paolo Heywood, Robin Irvine, Morten Pedersen, Mat Candea, Marilyn Strathern, Matthew Engelke, Nigel Rapport, and Christos Lynteris.
Programm link to pdf here
"Rethinking Euro-anthropology".
Social Anthropology, 24 (3)
My colleague Vita Peacock (UCL), who has conducted and published fantastic work on hierarchy and organisational logics at the German Max Planck Institutes, just wrote these reinvigorating lines about the future of European anthropology. Well worth a read, the entire issue (here). This is from the last paragraph in Vita's comment:
"A European anthropology for the present century cannot lose any more precious years proving some philosopher right. We must recover our forebears’ sense of purpose, but invert it. While they journeyed thousands of miles, we have limitless work to do here in Europe. While they took their categories with them, we can use other notions they brought back. And while their eyes gleamed with the private thrill of the collector, we can train instead the steady gaze of the hunter. Because for them the future was a lens through which the present was refracted, but for us, anthropology can be a means to discover hidden promises for the future, deep within the depths of the present."
Peacock, Vita. 2016. 'A European anthropology for the present century'. Anthropologie Sociale/Social Anthropology. 24 (3): 378-379.
Social Anthropology, 24 (3)
My colleague Vita Peacock (UCL), who has conducted and published fantastic work on hierarchy and organisational logics at the German Max Planck Institutes, just wrote these reinvigorating lines about the future of European anthropology. Well worth a read, the entire issue (here). This is from the last paragraph in Vita's comment:
"A European anthropology for the present century cannot lose any more precious years proving some philosopher right. We must recover our forebears’ sense of purpose, but invert it. While they journeyed thousands of miles, we have limitless work to do here in Europe. While they took their categories with them, we can use other notions they brought back. And while their eyes gleamed with the private thrill of the collector, we can train instead the steady gaze of the hunter. Because for them the future was a lens through which the present was refracted, but for us, anthropology can be a means to discover hidden promises for the future, deep within the depths of the present."
Peacock, Vita. 2016. 'A European anthropology for the present century'. Anthropologie Sociale/Social Anthropology. 24 (3): 378-379.
Kommentar vom Goethe-Institut zum Ruhrorter Kunst und Theaterprojekt mit Geflüchteten
"Tatsächlich fällt beim Blick auf die nachtkritik -Liste auf, dass künstlerische Initiativen, in denen Geflüchtete die eigene Stimme erheben, noch selten sind. Doch es gibt sie: etwa im Projekt RUHRORTER am Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim, wo Flüchtlinge selbst spielen, inszenieren und konzeptionieren. Oder am Schauspiel Wuppertal, wo Syrer mit Hilfe von regionalen Schriftstellern in Wir erzählen um unser Leben ihre Fluchtgeschichten formulieren. Oder am Theater Osnabrück, wo der syrische Theatermann Anis Hamdoun eigene Projekte gestaltet. Es gibt noch viel zu lernen im neuen Einwanderungsland Deutschland."
http://www.goethe.de/lhr/prj/daz/mag/ksz/de15110483.htm
"Tatsächlich fällt beim Blick auf die nachtkritik -Liste auf, dass künstlerische Initiativen, in denen Geflüchtete die eigene Stimme erheben, noch selten sind. Doch es gibt sie: etwa im Projekt RUHRORTER am Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim, wo Flüchtlinge selbst spielen, inszenieren und konzeptionieren. Oder am Schauspiel Wuppertal, wo Syrer mit Hilfe von regionalen Schriftstellern in Wir erzählen um unser Leben ihre Fluchtgeschichten formulieren. Oder am Theater Osnabrück, wo der syrische Theatermann Anis Hamdoun eigene Projekte gestaltet. Es gibt noch viel zu lernen im neuen Einwanderungsland Deutschland."
http://www.goethe.de/lhr/prj/daz/mag/ksz/de15110483.htm
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EASA 2016 Panel on THE ART OF SLOWING DOWN, Milan/Italy
Looking forward to being discussant on panel P086 on SLOW ANTHROPOLOGY and the ART OF SLOWING DOWN at the 14th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, University of Milano-Bicoccia, 20-23 July 2016 http://nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4255 |
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OPEN ATELIER - Call for Interest - Ruhrorter project
For our next project, starting mid-August 2016, we are looking for artists (painting, photography, sculpture, fine arts, music, film, literature) who have fled to Germany. Together, we want to create an open atelier or artistic work, encounters, discussions, and get-togethers, which aims to be predominantly self-organised.
To register or contact us, please send us an email until 31 July 2016.
Parallel to the atelier, we are already working on an artistic installation on the bureaucracy of the asylum process, which will open together with the atelier in late September.
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السلسلة الاولى لهذا العام من ثلاثية اجزاء ال RUHRORTER انتهت هذا السبت
لالقاء نظرة اخرى على الاثني عشر عرضاً والذين كانوا ناجحين وحققو اعلى حجوزات
يمكنكم الحصول على الصور والمعلومات على موقعنا
CONTACT
وسيبدأ مشروعنا الجديد في منتصف شهر آب من 2016
نحن نبحث عن فنانين، موسيقيين وانواع اخرى من الفنون كالافلام والآداب التي جاءت من مختلف انحاء العالم الى المانيا
معاً نريد ان نكوّن معرض ومشروع فني يتضمن لقاءات، نقاشات واجتماعات التي تهدف لتكون ذاتية التنظيم
للتسجيل والتواصل معنا الرجاء ارسال ايميل،
التسجيل مستمر حتى 31 تموز 2016
بذات الوقت نحن نعمل على مشروع لشرح التركيب الفني لبيروقراطية عملية اللجوء والذي سيتم افتتاحه في اواخر ايلول
مع تمنياتي للجميع
http://www.ruhrorter.com/atelier.html
For our next project, starting mid-August 2016, we are looking for artists (painting, photography, sculpture, fine arts, music, film, literature) who have fled to Germany. Together, we want to create an open atelier or artistic work, encounters, discussions, and get-togethers, which aims to be predominantly self-organised.
To register or contact us, please send us an email until 31 July 2016.
Parallel to the atelier, we are already working on an artistic installation on the bureaucracy of the asylum process, which will open together with the atelier in late September.
...
السلسلة الاولى لهذا العام من ثلاثية اجزاء ال RUHRORTER انتهت هذا السبت
لالقاء نظرة اخرى على الاثني عشر عرضاً والذين كانوا ناجحين وحققو اعلى حجوزات
يمكنكم الحصول على الصور والمعلومات على موقعنا
CONTACT
وسيبدأ مشروعنا الجديد في منتصف شهر آب من 2016
نحن نبحث عن فنانين، موسيقيين وانواع اخرى من الفنون كالافلام والآداب التي جاءت من مختلف انحاء العالم الى المانيا
معاً نريد ان نكوّن معرض ومشروع فني يتضمن لقاءات، نقاشات واجتماعات التي تهدف لتكون ذاتية التنظيم
للتسجيل والتواصل معنا الرجاء ارسال ايميل،
التسجيل مستمر حتى 31 تموز 2016
بذات الوقت نحن نعمل على مشروع لشرح التركيب الفني لبيروقراطية عملية اللجوء والذي سيتم افتتاحه في اواخر ايلول
مع تمنياتي للجميع
http://www.ruhrorter.com/atelier.html
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Kultur und Flucht – Möglichkeitsräume in der Krise? 28 Juni 2016, Podiumsdiskussion im Theater an der Ruhr
Oliver Keymis, MdL, Landtagsvizepräsident, im Gespräch mit: Ulle Schauws, MdB, Sprecherin für Kulturpolitik Helmut Schäfer, Dramaturg und Mitglied der Leitung des Theaters an der Ruhr Jonas Tinius, promovierter Anthropologe, wissenschaftlicher Begleiter des Projekts RUHRORTER – Theater u Kunst mit Geflüchteten |
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Book launch and public panel discussion: What are museums good for in the 21st century? (4 July 2016, CARMaH, HU Berlin)
The Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMaH), where I started working on 1 June 2016, will host a book presentation and panel discussion titled 'What are museums good for in the 21st Century?' on July 4th, 2016. Nicholas Thomas (Director, Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Cambridge) will provide an impulse from his new book, The Return of Curiosity. What Museums are Good for in the 21st Century (2016,Reaktion Books). This will be followed by a discussion with Inka Bertz (Head of Collections, Jewish Museum Berlin), Verena Lepper (Curator, Egyptian and Oriental Papyri, Egyptian Museum of Berlin), Sven Sappelt (Curator of the Humboldt Lab, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Bernd Scherer (Director, Haus der Kulturen der Welt), moderated by CARMaH Director Sharon Macdonald, followed by a reception.
Please register via: carmah-conference(at)hu-berlin.de
The Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMaH), where I started working on 1 June 2016, will host a book presentation and panel discussion titled 'What are museums good for in the 21st Century?' on July 4th, 2016. Nicholas Thomas (Director, Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Cambridge) will provide an impulse from his new book, The Return of Curiosity. What Museums are Good for in the 21st Century (2016,Reaktion Books). This will be followed by a discussion with Inka Bertz (Head of Collections, Jewish Museum Berlin), Verena Lepper (Curator, Egyptian and Oriental Papyri, Egyptian Museum of Berlin), Sven Sappelt (Curator of the Humboldt Lab, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Bernd Scherer (Director, Haus der Kulturen der Welt), moderated by CARMaH Director Sharon Macdonald, followed by a reception.
Please register via: carmah-conference(at)hu-berlin.de
New article on architecture, power, and Berlin's new old Humboldt-Forum (published in: Calvert Journal)
As part of a series on architecture and power, The Calvert Journal has just published a short piece I co-authored with artist and art historian Dr Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (Oxford) on the palatial recurrences and cosmopolitan framing of the new ethnological collections contained in the Humboldt-Forum on the museum island in Berlin.
calvertjournal.com/features/show/6141/power-and-architecture-humboldt-forum
As part of a series on architecture and power, The Calvert Journal has just published a short piece I co-authored with artist and art historian Dr Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (Oxford) on the palatial recurrences and cosmopolitan framing of the new ethnological collections contained in the Humboldt-Forum on the museum island in Berlin.
calvertjournal.com/features/show/6141/power-and-architecture-humboldt-forum
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Kultur und Flucht – Möglichkeitsräume in der Krise? 28 Juni 2016, Podiumsdiskussion im Theater an der Ruhr
Oliver Keymis, MdL, Landtagsvizepräsident, im Gespräch mit: Ulle Schauws, MdB, Sprecherin für Kulturpolitik Helmut Schäfer, Dramaturg und Mitglied der Leitung des Theaters an der Ruhr Jonas Tinius, promovierter Anthropologe, wissenschaftlicher Begleiter des Projekts RUHRORTER – Theater und Kunst mit Geflüchteten Wann: Dienstag, 28. Juni 2016, 19:00 Uhr Wo: Theater an der Ruhr, Akazienallee 61, 45478 Mülheim an der Ruhr www.ulle-schauws.de/2016/06/kultur-kommt-kultur-und-flucht-moeglichkeitsraeume-in-der-krise/ |
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Starting new post-doc at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMaH), Berlin
Excited to have officially started my new new post-doctoral position at the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University Berlin, on the exciting Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung funded Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, or CARMaH.
Against the backdrop of Berlin's major new museum developments, most notably the Humboldt-Forum and its associated partners (the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art), my research explores the theorising potential and role of contemporary art in the representation of diversity and non-European art and culture in Germany. My project focuses on a range of dispersed artistic organisations and institutions as sites for reflexive theorising about the relation between art and anthropology, exploring how artists and researchers position themselves with regard to some of the contentious issues raised by ethnological museum projects such as those in the Humboldt-Forum, including questions about the involvement of artistic research and expertise, 'source communities', architectural design, and neo-colonialism/cosmopolitanism.
https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/institut/personen/tinius
Excited to have officially started my new new post-doctoral position at the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-University Berlin, on the exciting Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung funded Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, or CARMaH.
Against the backdrop of Berlin's major new museum developments, most notably the Humboldt-Forum and its associated partners (the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art), my research explores the theorising potential and role of contemporary art in the representation of diversity and non-European art and culture in Germany. My project focuses on a range of dispersed artistic organisations and institutions as sites for reflexive theorising about the relation between art and anthropology, exploring how artists and researchers position themselves with regard to some of the contentious issues raised by ethnological museum projects such as those in the Humboldt-Forum, including questions about the involvement of artistic research and expertise, 'source communities', architectural design, and neo-colonialism/cosmopolitanism.
https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/institut/personen/tinius
PREMIERE RUHRORTER: Kunst & Theaterprojekt mit Geflüchteten
ALS GESTERN JEDES HEUTE NOCH DAS MORGEN WAR
UND JEDES HEUTE MORGEN SCHON ZUM GESTERN WIRD
RUHRORTER ist ein kollaboratives Kunst und Theaterprojekt, das seit 2012 am Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim Installationen, Recherchen und anthropologische Forschung zum Thema Flucht und Migration realisiert.
ALS GESTERN JEDES HEUTE NOCH DAS MORGEN WAR
UND JEDES HEUTE MORGEN SCHON ZUM GESTERN WIRD
RUHRORTER ist ein kollaboratives Kunst und Theaterprojekt, das seit 2012 am Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim Installationen, Recherchen und anthropologische Forschung zum Thema Flucht und Migration realisiert.
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Premiere: 3. Juni, 19.30 Aufführungsort: Schloßstraße 35, 45468 Mülheim an der Ruhr Weitere Termine u. Informationen zum Projekt: www.ruhrorter.com |
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THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD? New Monumentality, Neo-Modernism and Other Zombie Urban Utopias
Excited to be speaking on Neo-monumentality and Berlin's new Humboldt-Forum at Michał Murawski (UCL) and Jonathan Bach's (New School) conference on POWER & ARCHITECTURE at UCL from 9-11 June. Check out their programme of events co-organised with Calvert 22 & The Calvert Journal
Excited to be speaking on Neo-monumentality and Berlin's new Humboldt-Forum at Michał Murawski (UCL) and Jonathan Bach's (New School) conference on POWER & ARCHITECTURE at UCL from 9-11 June. Check out their programme of events co-organised with Calvert 22 & The Calvert Journal
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Khadija Zinnenburg Carroll (Oxford) & Jonas Tinius (Humboldt University, European Ethnology): Appropriating Universal Centrality: Containing the World in Berlin’s New Humboldt Forum
http://calvert22.org/events/the-centre-cannot-hold |
Lecture Series: Anthropology of Images, Art, and New Media
Delighted to be giving a four lecture series on the anthropology of art, images, and new media for a new course option (The Anthropology of Media and Visual Culture, SAN11) for the Division of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. In this lecture series, I introduce anthropological approaches to image-making and representation, discussing Hans Belting and Thomas Struth, contemporary anthropological approaches to art, including relational aesthetics, and the role of avatars and self-presentation in new media platforms and social networks.
'The Anthropology of Images, Art, and New Media'.
Easter term 2016, weeks 1-4
Delighted to be giving a four lecture series on the anthropology of art, images, and new media for a new course option (The Anthropology of Media and Visual Culture, SAN11) for the Division of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. In this lecture series, I introduce anthropological approaches to image-making and representation, discussing Hans Belting and Thomas Struth, contemporary anthropological approaches to art, including relational aesthetics, and the role of avatars and self-presentation in new media platforms and social networks.
'The Anthropology of Images, Art, and New Media'.
Easter term 2016, weeks 1-4
RUHRORTER (Theater- und Kunstprojekt mit Geflüchteten) vertreten in Initiative des Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Wir freuen uns, dass Ruhrorter als 'Akteur' auf der Plattform 'Kultur öffnet Welten', verantwortet vom Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, vertreten ist. "Ruhrorter schafft Räume mit eigenen Formen, die andere Möglichkeiten zur Reflexion sozialer Problembereiche eröffnen."
„Kultur öffnet Welten“ ist eine gemeinsame Initiative von Bund, Ländern und Kommunen, künstlerischen Dachverbänden und AkteurInnen aus der Zivilgesellschaft auf Anregung von Kulturstaatsministerin Monika Grütters. Die Initiative wird von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien gefördert.
http://www.kultur-oeffnet-welten.de/programm/akteurinnen_detail.html?id=352&page=5
Wir freuen uns, dass Ruhrorter als 'Akteur' auf der Plattform 'Kultur öffnet Welten', verantwortet vom Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, vertreten ist. "Ruhrorter schafft Räume mit eigenen Formen, die andere Möglichkeiten zur Reflexion sozialer Problembereiche eröffnen."
„Kultur öffnet Welten“ ist eine gemeinsame Initiative von Bund, Ländern und Kommunen, künstlerischen Dachverbänden und AkteurInnen aus der Zivilgesellschaft auf Anregung von Kulturstaatsministerin Monika Grütters. Die Initiative wird von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien gefördert.
http://www.kultur-oeffnet-welten.de/programm/akteurinnen_detail.html?id=352&page=5
'Rehearsing Detachment: Refugee Theatre and Dialectical Fiction' (Journal of Art and Anthropology, 5(1): 21-38)
This article responds to Nicolas Bourriaud’s account of the poetic function of relational art, which for him “consists in re-forming worlds of subjectivization” (2002 [1998]: 104). I challenge and complement his account of how such reforming takes place in relational art by providing an ethnographic description of what I term ‘dialectical fiction’. This notion describes actors’ cultivation of detachment and reappropriation of subjectivity during theatre rehearsals by building up fictional characters.
Download pdf here: https://cadernosaa.revues.org/1022
This article responds to Nicolas Bourriaud’s account of the poetic function of relational art, which for him “consists in re-forming worlds of subjectivization” (2002 [1998]: 104). I challenge and complement his account of how such reforming takes place in relational art by providing an ethnographic description of what I term ‘dialectical fiction’. This notion describes actors’ cultivation of detachment and reappropriation of subjectivity during theatre rehearsals by building up fictional characters.
Download pdf here: https://cadernosaa.revues.org/1022
'Micro-utopias: anthropological perspectives on art, creativity, and relationality' (Special issue in: Journal of Art and Anthropology, 5/1)
EDITORIAL
Ruy Blanes, Alex Flynn, Maïté Maskens and Jonas Tinius
Micro-utopias: anthropological perspectives on art, relationality, and creativity.
https://cadernosaa.revues.org/1017
ARTICLES
Jonas Tinius
Rehearsing Detachment: Refugee Theatre and Dialectical Fiction
https://cadernosaa.revues.org/1022
Further articles by
Floris Schuiling (The Instant Composers Pool),
Alex Flynn (Subjectivity and the Obliteration of Meaning),
Anne-Sophie Reichert (How to Begin, Again. Relational Embodiment in Time Arts & Anthropology),
Jan-Jonathan Bock (Approaching Utopia Pragmatically),
Neylan Bağcıoğlu (Artistic Labour: Seeking a Utopian Dimension),
Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (Microtopia in Counterpoint: Relational Aesthetics and the Echo Project),
Tomás Sánchez Criado and Adolfo Estalella (Antropocefa: A kit for experimental collaborations in ethnographic practice)
AFTERWORD
Roger Sansi: After Utopias.
https://cadernosaa.revues.org/1078
EDITORIAL
Ruy Blanes, Alex Flynn, Maïté Maskens and Jonas Tinius
Micro-utopias: anthropological perspectives on art, relationality, and creativity.
https://cadernosaa.revues.org/1017
ARTICLES
Jonas Tinius
Rehearsing Detachment: Refugee Theatre and Dialectical Fiction
https://cadernosaa.revues.org/1022
Further articles by
Floris Schuiling (The Instant Composers Pool),
Alex Flynn (Subjectivity and the Obliteration of Meaning),
Anne-Sophie Reichert (How to Begin, Again. Relational Embodiment in Time Arts & Anthropology),
Jan-Jonathan Bock (Approaching Utopia Pragmatically),
Neylan Bağcıoğlu (Artistic Labour: Seeking a Utopian Dimension),
Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (Microtopia in Counterpoint: Relational Aesthetics and the Echo Project),
Tomás Sánchez Criado and Adolfo Estalella (Antropocefa: A kit for experimental collaborations in ethnographic practice)
AFTERWORD
Roger Sansi: After Utopias.
https://cadernosaa.revues.org/1078
JRAI Review: 'Art, Anthropology and the Gift' (Bloomsbury, 2015) by Roger Sansi
My review of Roger Sansi's latest book has just appeared in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Volume 22, Issue 1, pages 215-2016.
In recent decades, the dialogue between art and anthropology has been both intense and controversial. Art, Anthropology and the Gift provides a much-needed and comprehensive overview of this dialogue, whilst also exploring the reciprocal nature of the two subjects through practice, theory and politics.
Read it online on the JRAI website here
My review of Roger Sansi's latest book has just appeared in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Volume 22, Issue 1, pages 215-2016.
In recent decades, the dialogue between art and anthropology has been both intense and controversial. Art, Anthropology and the Gift provides a much-needed and comprehensive overview of this dialogue, whilst also exploring the reciprocal nature of the two subjects through practice, theory and politics.
Read it online on the JRAI website here
Theatre Research International Review: 'Lob des Realismus' [Praise of Realism] (Theater der Zeit, 2015) by Bernd Stegemann
My review of Bernd Stegemann's latest book on realism, theatre, and capitalism has just appeared in the latest issue of Theatre Research International (Volume 41, Issue 1, pages 86-87).
Stegemann takes ‘realism’ to be ‘the aesthetic method through which we can cope with an increasingly contradictory world’ (p. 11). This builds on two assumptions arguably shared by all artistic realisms. First, ‘there is a reality and we can try to understand it’, and second, there exist forms of realistic portrayal which help ‘grasp the world as variable and modifiable’, thus freeing people from ‘painfully tolerating their lives as an incomprehensible string of chanceful events’ (p. 8).
Read the review online in TRI
My review of Bernd Stegemann's latest book on realism, theatre, and capitalism has just appeared in the latest issue of Theatre Research International (Volume 41, Issue 1, pages 86-87).
Stegemann takes ‘realism’ to be ‘the aesthetic method through which we can cope with an increasingly contradictory world’ (p. 11). This builds on two assumptions arguably shared by all artistic realisms. First, ‘there is a reality and we can try to understand it’, and second, there exist forms of realistic portrayal which help ‘grasp the world as variable and modifiable’, thus freeing people from ‘painfully tolerating their lives as an incomprehensible string of chanceful events’ (p. 8).
Read the review online in TRI
Cambridge Migration Research Network (December 2015)
Glad to join the Cambridge Migration Research Network (CAMMIGRES) for my work on the RUHRORTER refugee theatre project.
CAMMIGRES brings together a tract of migration research, spanning 23 University of Cambridge faculties, departments and centres, including researchers. Its researchers' interests orient around the impacts of past and present migration in relation to human evolution and development, social, legal, and economic policy, governance, professional knowledge, institutional practice and social relations.
http://www.cammigres.group.cam.ac.uk/directory/jonas-tinius
Glad to join the Cambridge Migration Research Network (CAMMIGRES) for my work on the RUHRORTER refugee theatre project.
CAMMIGRES brings together a tract of migration research, spanning 23 University of Cambridge faculties, departments and centres, including researchers. Its researchers' interests orient around the impacts of past and present migration in relation to human evolution and development, social, legal, and economic policy, governance, professional knowledge, institutional practice and social relations.
http://www.cammigres.group.cam.ac.uk/directory/jonas-tinius
Retheorising the Avant-garde Today: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (12-13 December 2015)
We are pleased to announce this new two-day workshop to be held at King’s College, University of Cambridge. Organised by Georgina Born (Oxford), Christopher Haworth (Oxford), and Jonas Tinius (Cambridge), the event stems from the ERC-funded ‘Music, Digitization, Mediation: Towards Interdisciplinary Music Studies’ (MusDig) research programme.
Today, claims for the ‘avant-garde’ status of certain art, musical, theatrical and literary movements and practices are being made with an intensity matching any previous era. Yet these putative avant-gardes often inhabit institutions, find their support in commerce, and can attract subsidies and publicity in ways that approach or match mainstream cultural production, and that oppose the earlier positioning of avant-gardes outside or against these structures. Indeed, the sheer proliferation and scale of such movements and practices seem to contradict the erstwhile claims made for the avant-garde’s marginal, ‘outsider’, underground or independent status, calling forth new approaches to the theory of the avant-garde.
For more information, visit: http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/events/conference-retheorising-the-avant-garde-today-12-12-2015
We are pleased to announce this new two-day workshop to be held at King’s College, University of Cambridge. Organised by Georgina Born (Oxford), Christopher Haworth (Oxford), and Jonas Tinius (Cambridge), the event stems from the ERC-funded ‘Music, Digitization, Mediation: Towards Interdisciplinary Music Studies’ (MusDig) research programme.
Today, claims for the ‘avant-garde’ status of certain art, musical, theatrical and literary movements and practices are being made with an intensity matching any previous era. Yet these putative avant-gardes often inhabit institutions, find their support in commerce, and can attract subsidies and publicity in ways that approach or match mainstream cultural production, and that oppose the earlier positioning of avant-gardes outside or against these structures. Indeed, the sheer proliferation and scale of such movements and practices seem to contradict the erstwhile claims made for the avant-garde’s marginal, ‘outsider’, underground or independent status, calling forth new approaches to the theory of the avant-garde.
For more information, visit: http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/events/conference-retheorising-the-avant-garde-today-12-12-2015
'15 MINUTES': Artistic responses to precarious refugee temporalities (Repost, February 2015)
My colleagues over at the wonderful anthropology platform Allegra-Lab have just reposted my article on artistic responses to the legal and temporal precariousness of refugees in Germany. The text is based on a paper I presented at the AAA in Washington, D.C. in December 2014 and appeared in a series on refugees and migration edited by Dr Luigi Achilli.
Read the article here: http://tinyurl.com/nnj46ec
My colleagues over at the wonderful anthropology platform Allegra-Lab have just reposted my article on artistic responses to the legal and temporal precariousness of refugees in Germany. The text is based on a paper I presented at the AAA in Washington, D.C. in December 2014 and appeared in a series on refugees and migration edited by Dr Luigi Achilli.
Read the article here: http://tinyurl.com/nnj46ec
Refugee Theatre & Observing Art (Interview, November 2015)
The German magazine TanzRaumBerlin published an interview with me in their November issue. Elena Philipp and I spoke about refugee theatre, collaborations between anthropologists and artists, and institutions as prisms for understanding social transformations. This was conducted by the great journalist Elena Philipp after the Branchentreff Performing Arts Programme Meeting in Berlin in October 2015.
http://tanzraumberlin.de/Magazin-Artikel--435-1.html?id=726
The German magazine TanzRaumBerlin published an interview with me in their November issue. Elena Philipp and I spoke about refugee theatre, collaborations between anthropologists and artists, and institutions as prisms for understanding social transformations. This was conducted by the great journalist Elena Philipp after the Branchentreff Performing Arts Programme Meeting in Berlin in October 2015.
http://tanzraumberlin.de/Magazin-Artikel--435-1.html?id=726
Theatre & Democracy (Interview, October 2015)
The Brazilian Revisita Cardamomo published an interview with me on theatre and democracy. Read the Portuguese and English versions online on their website. A Portuguese translation of my article 'Patronage and Crisis: German theatre and cultural politics' will follow soon. Read the interview here: http://www.revistacardamomo.com/en/english-jonas-tinius/
The Brazilian Revisita Cardamomo published an interview with me on theatre and democracy. Read the Portuguese and English versions online on their website. A Portuguese translation of my article 'Patronage and Crisis: German theatre and cultural politics' will follow soon. Read the interview here: http://www.revistacardamomo.com/en/english-jonas-tinius/
Credit: Refugee theatre, Franziska Götzen
New Anthropologies of Political Performance - Thematic thread on #performance (October 2015)
I am delighted that the wonderful ALLEGRA online platform for anthropological matters has just published the introduction to an exciting special issue of articles on anthropology and political performance by Vita Peacock, Andrea Grant, Vanessa Farr (reviewing Julie Billaud's Kabul Carnival) and Scott Head (reviewing Alex Flynn's and my Anthropology, Theatre, and Development).
"Definitions of ‘performance’ abound. Some of the principal reasons for anthropologists’ continued interest in the subject of performance are the reflexive, relational, and embodied dimensions of performance. Performance is a prism for studying human life. This thematic thread offers to expand our perspective by providing a view into practices of rehearsing, probing, improvising, scores, scripts, choreographies, backstage, frontstage, emergences, entries and exits, frames and scenes. These new anthropological approaches to performance present more than a collection of accounts on one tradition of playful enactment or another."
Read the entire week here: http://allegralaboratory.net/new-anthropologies-of-political-performance-thematic-thread-on-performance-2/
I am delighted that the wonderful ALLEGRA online platform for anthropological matters has just published the introduction to an exciting special issue of articles on anthropology and political performance by Vita Peacock, Andrea Grant, Vanessa Farr (reviewing Julie Billaud's Kabul Carnival) and Scott Head (reviewing Alex Flynn's and my Anthropology, Theatre, and Development).
"Definitions of ‘performance’ abound. Some of the principal reasons for anthropologists’ continued interest in the subject of performance are the reflexive, relational, and embodied dimensions of performance. Performance is a prism for studying human life. This thematic thread offers to expand our perspective by providing a view into practices of rehearsing, probing, improvising, scores, scripts, choreographies, backstage, frontstage, emergences, entries and exits, frames and scenes. These new anthropological approaches to performance present more than a collection of accounts on one tradition of playful enactment or another."
Read the entire week here: http://allegralaboratory.net/new-anthropologies-of-political-performance-thematic-thread-on-performance-2/
Interdisciplinary Performance Network (October 2015)
The Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network is delighted to announce that Prof Martin Puchner (Harvard University) will be opening our third year of seminars at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) with a special event entitled 'The Drama of Ideas: Platonic Provocations In Theater And Philosophy'. Our seminars this year take place under the title 'InterActivity: Performing Relations'.
For more information and this year's full programme, visit our website or click on the programme on the right:
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/performance-network
The Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network is delighted to announce that Prof Martin Puchner (Harvard University) will be opening our third year of seminars at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) with a special event entitled 'The Drama of Ideas: Platonic Provocations In Theater And Philosophy'. Our seminars this year take place under the title 'InterActivity: Performing Relations'.
For more information and this year's full programme, visit our website or click on the programme on the right:
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/performance-network
Refugee theatre on nachtkritik.de (October 2015)
I am very glad to see that the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER, which I accompanied and documented has been mentioned in a list of theatre projects engaging with refugees by the important theatre platform nachtkritik.de.
#refugeeswelcome – Wie die Theater in der Flüchtlingshilfe aktiv werden
Mülheim, Theater an der Ruhr. Seit 2012 gibt es das "nachhaltige Theater- und Kunstprojekt" Ruhrorter des Theaters an der Ruhr mit Flüchtlingen und Asylsuchenden aus dem Ruhrgebiet. Mit "Ein Stück von mir" (2013), "Zwei Himmel (Palimpsest)" (2014) und "Und die Nacht meines Anfangs" (2015) hat es bereits drei Produktionen herausgebracht. Das Ziel von Ruhrorter ist nach eigenem Bekunden "die Suche nach neuen ästhetischen Formen, um mit den Mitteln der Kunst und der forschenden Dokumentation ein öffentlich sichtbares und erfahrbares Korrektiv gegen die stereotype Kategorisierung und Ausgrenzung von Flüchtlingen und Asylsuchenden – sowohl in der Bürgergesellschaft, als auch in den Medien und der dokumentarischen Kunst – zu entwerfen".
http://nachtkritik.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11497:immer-mehr-theater-engagieren-sich-fuer-fluechtlinge&catid=1513:portraet-profil-die-neuen-deutschen&Itemid=85
I am very glad to see that the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER, which I accompanied and documented has been mentioned in a list of theatre projects engaging with refugees by the important theatre platform nachtkritik.de.
#refugeeswelcome – Wie die Theater in der Flüchtlingshilfe aktiv werden
Mülheim, Theater an der Ruhr. Seit 2012 gibt es das "nachhaltige Theater- und Kunstprojekt" Ruhrorter des Theaters an der Ruhr mit Flüchtlingen und Asylsuchenden aus dem Ruhrgebiet. Mit "Ein Stück von mir" (2013), "Zwei Himmel (Palimpsest)" (2014) und "Und die Nacht meines Anfangs" (2015) hat es bereits drei Produktionen herausgebracht. Das Ziel von Ruhrorter ist nach eigenem Bekunden "die Suche nach neuen ästhetischen Formen, um mit den Mitteln der Kunst und der forschenden Dokumentation ein öffentlich sichtbares und erfahrbares Korrektiv gegen die stereotype Kategorisierung und Ausgrenzung von Flüchtlingen und Asylsuchenden – sowohl in der Bürgergesellschaft, als auch in den Medien und der dokumentarischen Kunst – zu entwerfen".
http://nachtkritik.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11497:immer-mehr-theater-engagieren-sich-fuer-fluechtlinge&catid=1513:portraet-profil-die-neuen-deutschen&Itemid=85
Journal Article (free download)
50 copies (first come first served basis) of my new article 'Institutional Formations and Artistic Critique in German Ensemble theatre' (2015, Performance Research) have just been made available for free.
Abstract
If institutions are "the more enduring features of social life" (Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 1984), then how do they come into being? What kinds of collective practices and intersubjective aspirations bring them about, and how do they maintain them? This article investigates these questions through the lens of instituting processes, that is, practices that structure and underpin institutional formations. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with the Theater an der Ruhr, a public theatre in the German post-industrial Ruhr valley, this article examines the role of rehearsals as a key instituting practice in theatres.
In this case study, the ideals and actions associated with long-term rehearsals serve not merely a professional purpose as principal form of artistic labour; rather, rehearsals constitute the aesthetic, ethical, and political modus operandi of the institution. As the core work of art in the institution, rehearsals facilitate the long-term development of a collective aesthetic in an ensemble as well as the ethical cultivation of actors' artistic sensibilities. This article thereby also examines how the theatre conceptualises collective rehearsing as a political practice by distinguishing it from the project-based and flexible modalities propagated by post-Fordist policies in the arts. Artistic critique is articulated through and not against the formation of an institution. Based on this account, this article proposes to treat artistic institutions and instituting processes as significant subjects of anthropological research and as prisms for the study of aesthetic, ethical, and political practices.
Click this link to access the article for free:
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/eVNzesshe6S3wpEGHRh8/full
50 copies (first come first served basis) of my new article 'Institutional Formations and Artistic Critique in German Ensemble theatre' (2015, Performance Research) have just been made available for free.
Abstract
If institutions are "the more enduring features of social life" (Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 1984), then how do they come into being? What kinds of collective practices and intersubjective aspirations bring them about, and how do they maintain them? This article investigates these questions through the lens of instituting processes, that is, practices that structure and underpin institutional formations. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with the Theater an der Ruhr, a public theatre in the German post-industrial Ruhr valley, this article examines the role of rehearsals as a key instituting practice in theatres.
In this case study, the ideals and actions associated with long-term rehearsals serve not merely a professional purpose as principal form of artistic labour; rather, rehearsals constitute the aesthetic, ethical, and political modus operandi of the institution. As the core work of art in the institution, rehearsals facilitate the long-term development of a collective aesthetic in an ensemble as well as the ethical cultivation of actors' artistic sensibilities. This article thereby also examines how the theatre conceptualises collective rehearsing as a political practice by distinguishing it from the project-based and flexible modalities propagated by post-Fordist policies in the arts. Artistic critique is articulated through and not against the formation of an institution. Based on this account, this article proposes to treat artistic institutions and instituting processes as significant subjects of anthropological research and as prisms for the study of aesthetic, ethical, and political practices.
Click this link to access the article for free:
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/eVNzesshe6S3wpEGHRh8/full
Division of Social Anthropology
New profile on the website of the social anthropology division is now up.
http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/directory/jonas-tinius
New profile on the website of the social anthropology division is now up.
http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/directory/jonas-tinius
Presentation (Sept 2015)
'Das Werk der Kunst: Arbeit, Kreativität und Postfordismus'.
Vortrag auf der 7. Arbeitstagung 'Ästhetisierung der Arbeit – Kulturanalytische Perspektiven' der Kommission »Arbeitskulturen« in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (dgv)
University of Bonn, Germany. 24-26 September 2015.
Keynote: Prof Andreas Reckwitz (Frankfurt/Oder)
'Das Werk der Kunst: Arbeit, Kreativität und Postfordismus'.
Vortrag auf der 7. Arbeitstagung 'Ästhetisierung der Arbeit – Kulturanalytische Perspektiven' der Kommission »Arbeitskulturen« in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (dgv)
University of Bonn, Germany. 24-26 September 2015.
Keynote: Prof Andreas Reckwitz (Frankfurt/Oder)
WORKSHOP (Sept 2015)
'Contemporary Anthropologies of Art'
University of Durham | Anthropology Department | 9 September 2015
Keynote speaker: Prof Arnd Schneider (Anthropology, Oslo)
Participants: Prof Michael Carrithers (Durham), Dr Roger Sansi (Goldsmiths), Lidia Rossner (Berlin), Dr Thomas Yarrow (Durham), Johannes Sjøberg (Manchester), Dr Rafael Schacter (UCL), Dr Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov (Moscow), Dr Nayanika Mookherjee (Durham), etc.
Convenors: Jonas Tinius and Alex Flynn
'Contemporary Anthropologies of Art'
University of Durham | Anthropology Department | 9 September 2015
Keynote speaker: Prof Arnd Schneider (Anthropology, Oslo)
Participants: Prof Michael Carrithers (Durham), Dr Roger Sansi (Goldsmiths), Lidia Rossner (Berlin), Dr Thomas Yarrow (Durham), Johannes Sjøberg (Manchester), Dr Rafael Schacter (UCL), Dr Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov (Moscow), Dr Nayanika Mookherjee (Durham), etc.
Convenors: Jonas Tinius and Alex Flynn
BOOK CHAPTER (August 2015)
‘Between professional precariousness and creative self-organisation: the free performing arts scene in Germany’, in: Mobile Autonomy. Exercises in Artists’ Self-Organisation, edited by Pascal Gielen and Nico Dockx. 2015. Amsterdam: Valiz, pp. 159-181
"Mobile Autonomy detects what modes of economy and different innovative working modalities artists and other artistic professionals have developed in order to create their work in today’s social, economic and political conditions."
http://www.valiz.nl/en/MobileAutonomy
You can download a pdf of the book chapter for free here:
tinyurl.com/nterstr
‘Between professional precariousness and creative self-organisation: the free performing arts scene in Germany’, in: Mobile Autonomy. Exercises in Artists’ Self-Organisation, edited by Pascal Gielen and Nico Dockx. 2015. Amsterdam: Valiz, pp. 159-181
"Mobile Autonomy detects what modes of economy and different innovative working modalities artists and other artistic professionals have developed in order to create their work in today’s social, economic and political conditions."
http://www.valiz.nl/en/MobileAutonomy
You can download a pdf of the book chapter for free here:
tinyurl.com/nterstr
INTERVIEW (August 2015)
'Good without God'. Interview with anthropologist Matthew Engelke from the London School of Economics for the King's Review series of conversations on the ‘Good Life’. Building on earlier research on what it means to be good for a Christian, Engelke talks about achieving a good life and happiness as a secular humanist in Britain today. In short, such a good life emerges through debate, contemplation, reason and argument – always in relation and conversation with others – and it comes now, in this world, as part of this life’s happiness. Engelke provides us with starting points to explore important questions about wellbeing, ethics, and a good life – without god.
http://kingsreview.co.uk/magazine/blog/2015/08/05/good-without-god-an-interview-with-matthew-engelke/#top
'Good without God'. Interview with anthropologist Matthew Engelke from the London School of Economics for the King's Review series of conversations on the ‘Good Life’. Building on earlier research on what it means to be good for a Christian, Engelke talks about achieving a good life and happiness as a secular humanist in Britain today. In short, such a good life emerges through debate, contemplation, reason and argument – always in relation and conversation with others – and it comes now, in this world, as part of this life’s happiness. Engelke provides us with starting points to explore important questions about wellbeing, ethics, and a good life – without god.
http://kingsreview.co.uk/magazine/blog/2015/08/05/good-without-god-an-interview-with-matthew-engelke/#top
ARTICLE (August 2015)
‚Was für ein Theater! Überlegungen zum Spielfeld zwischen ethnographischer Praxis und performativer Kunst’. Berliner Blätter. Ethnographische und Ethnologische Beiträge. 68/2015: 30-42. Edited by Katrin Amelang and Silvy Chakkalakal.
[What theatre! Thoughts on the playing field between ethnographic praxis and performative art. Berlin Bulletin. Ethnographic and Ethnological Review].
https://www.panama-verlag.de/programm/abseitiges/
ISBN 978-3-938714-43-0
‚Was für ein Theater! Überlegungen zum Spielfeld zwischen ethnographischer Praxis und performativer Kunst’. Berliner Blätter. Ethnographische und Ethnologische Beiträge. 68/2015: 30-42. Edited by Katrin Amelang and Silvy Chakkalakal.
[What theatre! Thoughts on the playing field between ethnographic praxis and performative art. Berlin Bulletin. Ethnographic and Ethnological Review].
https://www.panama-verlag.de/programm/abseitiges/
ISBN 978-3-938714-43-0
BOOK (July 2015)
Anthropology, Theatre, and Development: The Transformative Potential of Performance, edited with Alex Flynn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Download the introductory chapter as a pdf from Palgrave here.
"When is reflection political, ethical? This multidimensional collection on performance as theatre opens up an arena for exploration through the sheer audacity of its scope. Anthropologically informed, diversely interpreted, it is a compelling example of unexpected collaborations."
- Dame Marilyn Strathern, DBE, FBA, Social Anthropology, Cambridge.
Anthropology, Theatre, and Development: The Transformative Potential of Performance, edited with Alex Flynn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Download the introductory chapter as a pdf from Palgrave here.
"When is reflection political, ethical? This multidimensional collection on performance as theatre opens up an arena for exploration through the sheer audacity of its scope. Anthropologically informed, diversely interpreted, it is a compelling example of unexpected collaborations."
- Dame Marilyn Strathern, DBE, FBA, Social Anthropology, Cambridge.
CONFERENCE (June 2015)
Creative Labour(er): Anthropological Perspectives on the Work of Art'
8 June 2015
King's College, University of Cambridge.
Keynote: Prof Georgina Born (Music and Anthropology, University of Oxford).
http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/2015/05/creative-labourer-anthropological-perspectives-on-the-work-of-art/
Creative Labour(er): Anthropological Perspectives on the Work of Art'
8 June 2015
King's College, University of Cambridge.
Keynote: Prof Georgina Born (Music and Anthropology, University of Oxford).
http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/2015/05/creative-labourer-anthropological-perspectives-on-the-work-of-art/