Monday, July 17, 2017

KUNSTSCHUSS


Kunstschuss

The Vaginal Davis dollface came back to Berlin for a short spell for CHEAP Funk on Rebooty FM the regular monthly radio program hosted by the CHEAP gang on 88.4. The theme this month was loosely related to all things Fredrich Engels as our fearless leader Susanne Sachsse has been on lockdown in Manchester, England performing in a piece on Engels by the Mancunian international artist Phil Collins aka: RePhil Collins.

Ms. Davis was treated to nice brunch at the Schwartzer Cafe on Kant Strasse in Wilmersdorf by journalista Phillip Meinert who is doing a book on queer punk rock. Phillip is quite the sweet, freshly scrubbed youthful looking writer.

He is 34 years old but could easily pass for 24. Part of the reason he looks so young is he doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol, and he isn’t straight edge either.

Love it!!!!

A lot of people in Berlin could take heed in avoiding embibing and nicotine which does contribute to a large portion of the population resembling Nosferatu the Vampyre a symphony of Horror. The Max Schreck version not the Klaus Kinski one.

Just saying . . .

Daniel Hendrickson the Jewish Muzlim and I accompanied tiny TNT Turkish stud muffin Dr. Zuelfukar Cetin to The Gorky Theater where he was the expert facilitator of a discusion after the premiere of Studio 9 play Kunst Der Flucht by Persian author and director Pedro Kadivar. The piece was part of The Gorky Theater’s Pugs in Love Queer Weekend Festival.

I love how The Gorky has cultivated an exciting young, diverse audience that is different from any of the other theater crowds in Berlin at the moment. Are you listening HAU?

It was really exciting being in the audience and experiencing first hand the ambiance at play at The Gorky. The play also had a young migrant cast of trans and gay Persian refugees who were quite spirited and electric.

Was invited to a very sweet breakfast meeting thanx to Dr. Eike Wittrock at the Akademie Der Kunste Cafe at Hansaplatz. The personable Dr. Wittrock is bringing me to his university at Hildesheim in The Fall which I am really excited about.

Received a very adoreable note from young Black American artist and scholar Diana Arce on her upcoming activities. Please read and catch Lady Diana in action as she is engaged in some really exciting work:

Upcoming Politaoke Shows in Berlin, Germany


July 14th Fincan Neukölln
July 27th Aquarium bei Südblock
August 24th Aquarium bei Südblock
September 21st Aquarium bei Südblock

Politaoke is back with some upcoming Berlin shows just in time for the German election. We're building an entirely new program of speeches, so if there's a speech you're just dying to deliver, feel free to submit it to the program here.

We're looking for artists, collectives and NGO partners who want to bring Politaoke to their communities. We have a small grant to train 1 lucky partner anywhere in the EU this year! If you're interested, let me know!

Artists Without a Cause

On March 31st, AWAC, Transgender Europe and the Room 4 Resistance crew celebrated Transgender Day of Visibility by adding trans, queer, and PoC artists and activists and their contributions to the ever expanding online lexicon with a second Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon.

AWAC also just finished up three articles for Berlin Art Link feature series #Activism. You can read a bit about what we have been up to, check out our interview with the Berlin Chapter of WHEREISANAMENDIETA and our thoughts about best practices for community art.

White Guilt Clean Up

WGCU has been off to a busy start this year with multiple projects and consultations. Most recently, WGCU we organized 4 events for Black Lives Matter Berlin Month this June. For our final event, we partnered up with Transgender Europe and AWAC and, thanks to everyone's generosity, donated 285 dollars to Miss Major Griffin-Gracy's retirement fund! We completed out consultations with Queer Zinefest Berlin and are writing an assessment for Schwuz.

Ealier this year, I spoke on the panel "What Can a Decolonised Dancefloor Do?" at CTM festival. Be sure to give it a listen! We've got plenty in the works and are excited to share some more upcoming projects soon!

I delivered my first ever keynote speech at OER17: The Politics of Openentitled "Reaching Other Audiences: Art For Social Change. It was an amazing experience and exciting to share with such a great group of educators! Check out the video of my speech.

I will also speak at the DEL (Digitally Engaged Learning) 2017 Conference in London coming up in September. I'll be speaking about my work and AWAC!

Thanks for Reading

Diana