BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #28: Joy of Grief

Thursday, February 23, 18:30

Meeting point: Vogel Gryff Fähre, Unterer Rheinweg Basel

Ashes are blown into the Rhein, they are brought on mountaintops, returned to organic cycles in the soil or they are kept at private homes. There are many ways to shape the process of grieving. For some, it’s a relief to be able to choose their own rituals, while others are missing guidance in these moments. With a text by activist and writer Malkia Devich-Cyril, we will try to explore the political and collective dimension of grief. How far is grieving an individual, but also a collective skill? And what do we need it for?

In “To Give Your Hands To Freedom, First Give Them To Grief”, Devich-Cyril reflects on her own denial of mourning, and the feelings of guilt and blame that come along with it. It brings the writer to search for ways of grieving that produce agency and action. Especially in communities that have experienced a lot of forms of collective losses, resilient grief, so Devich-Cyril, is more than ever important to all struggles for twenty-first-century social justice movements. “Our bodies will die. Our organisations will die. Our movements will die. (..) Coping with loss is a skill that should be taught as fundamental to social movement leadership.”

Join us for a Soirée on the complexities, pleasures and joys of grieving, at the Vogel Gryff-Fähre, Unterer Rheinweg Basel. And bring warm clothes!

The text and soirée is held in English. All genders are welcome.

BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #27: Who cleans the world?

Thursday, October 17 November

Meeting Point: Auberg 2a, 4051 Basel

Clean air, clean water, clean houses, clean bodies, clean minds, and green spaces – this is how Françoise Vergès describes the needs of our time. In order to make this possible, we need the “invisible hands”: people who perform cleaning jobs discreetly. Who are the ones making spaces shiny for everyday’s activities? 

Vergès started to examine the relation between gender, exhaustion and race when she witnessed a strike of the black and brown women who clean Gare du Nord train station in Paris. Looking closer at the concrete struggles of female cleaning workers of color, she develops a decolonial feminism that works on the intersection of migration, the chemical industry, the economy of exhaustion, visibility/invisibility, race, gender, class, capitalism, and violence against women.

How does her text resonate in Switzerland? We are going to read “Capitalocene, Waste, Race, and Gender” together in the municipal cleaning centre of Basel (Stadtreinigung) and try to understand what differentiates cleaning domestic and public spaces, and how the clean/dirty division not only has a colonial heritage, but is still heavily connected to the militarization and gentrification of cities.

With us in the soirée is Ivan Rojas who works as a team leader in Stadtreinigung Basel-Stadt. He will share (in German) some insight in his work and be available for our questions.  

We also have a special guest via video, artist Mary Szydlowska, who is introducing us to her Cleaning Oracle-practice.

The text and soirée is held in English. All genders are welcome.

This evening is the third part of our trilogy loosely tied to Tinguely museum‘s thematic exhibition “Territories of Waste”.

©Museum Tinguely, Basel 2022
Fotos: Bettina Matthiessen

BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #26: Not wasted if turned into Art?

Thursday, October 27, 2022, 18:45
Conservation Room at Tinguely Museum, Paul Sacher-Anlage 4, 4002 Basel
(meeting at the museum’s info point)

For the second part of our trilogy loosely tied to Tinguely museum‘s thematic exhibition “Territories of Waste”, we are going to read the text “From Trash to Waste”, on Art‘s media Geology by Yvonne Volkart. The text describes the understanding of waste both as an activity of polluting the world based on consumerism and capitalism constrains in relation to “goods” and garbage and as form of matter and media itself that changes public property to private also reflected in art. In the current art and media discourses about revitalizing the trash as an artistic material, the concepts of waste, devaluation, and global justice have acquired a meaning that no longer merges into the trash discourse, but rather takes place in the concept of new materiality. The question of Volkart ” Not wasted if turned into art?” raises the questions about a new evaluation and reception of the geology, material and relational aspects of waste and how it effects the ways of imagining and planning the future of ecology and geopolitics relative within our relationship to materiality and nature.

In Tinguely museum with the guidance of Chantal Willi our partner in crime, we will have a short tour in the conservation room and being introduced to her practice there in relation to the objects and materials.

For those who want to have a look at the text beforehand, you can find the English version here .

The Soirée will be held in English.
All genders are welcome.

Photos: BRS & Museum Tinguely

 

BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #25: Waste Garden

Thursday, September 15th 2022, 19:00
Garden of Tinguely Museum, Paul Sacher-Anlage 2, 4002 Basel
(meeting at the museum’s info point)

On the beautiful riverside premises of pharmaceutical giant Roche’s very own Tinguely Museum, we will gather in and for a ‚Waste Garden‘ Soirée. This is the first part of our trilogy loosely tied to the museum’s thematic exhibition ‚Territories of Waste‘, opening September 14th. Together with Polish artist Diana Lelonek and amidst companions from her ongoing research project  ‚Center for the Living Things‘, we will read ‚Wasteplants: Towards· a Precarious Aesthetics and Ephemeral Heritage‘. The short text challenges our understanding of the ideas of conservation and contamination, as well as creativity. If we no longer associate waste solely with destruction and the end of things, we will get to peek into – and maybe even learn from – the vibrant, nonhuman collectives of wasteplants.

A magic potion, neither ’natural‘ nor cultivated, but collectively compos(t)ed by BRS motherboarders and our partner in crime will send our senses wandering and our thoughts to new directions.

For those who want to have a look at the text beforehand, you can find the English version here a few days before the Soirée.

The Soirée will be held in English. All genders are welcome.

BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #23: Imaginative Justice

Thursday, May 12 2022, 19:00
Meeting Point @ „Basel Weil am Rhein Grenze“ Tram 8
(Customs / Zoll Weil am Rhein)

Small Switzerland faces a big decision: On May 15, a vote will decide whether Frontex should receive even more money despite continuing human rights violations – or whether it is time for a new beginning.
The fear of such new beginnings is huge because they always confront us with uncertainties. If not Frontex, then what? What might be a different approach towards borders? How to include queerfeminist perspectives? How else could all this money be invested?

With a text by E. Tendayi Achiume, we take a step towards Imaginative Justice and approach visions that are thinking beyond existing conditions. „Migration as Decolonization“ looks at fortress Europe and how it seeks to hold back so-called economic refugees. Achiume reminds us that with colonisation, many Europeans left the continent for economic reasons and used non-European resources to build a better life. The ongoing economic imbalance in the world today therefore needs a counterbalance: economic migration must be understood and supported as a necessary response to the colonial era.

Our special guest will be Selam Habtemariam, part of the Migrant Solidarity Netzwerk and of the No Frontex referendum committee. We are going to read together – where else – on the external border of Switzerland, in a garden right next to the German customs!

The soirée will be hold mostly in English, but don’t be shy if you think your English is not perfect enough – we always find a way to communicate. And as usual: all genders welcome!

BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #22: Humans, Machines and Labour

Friday, April 22, 2022, 19:00
HGK Critical Media Lab, Freilagerplatz 1, 4142 Münchenstein
(i.e. Tall glasshouse, 3rd floor)

Together with basel.codes, we invite you to the challenging universe of algorithms. We will read “Calculation and the Division of Labor” (2017), a text by Lorraine Daston. It traces the development of automated computing power that now shapes our digital everyday life. We will talk about the meaning of the “automated” and ask ourselves, how the invention of algorithms out of a bourgeois-patriarchal setting is related to the systematic devaluation of digital care work. How algorithms shape a digital hierarchy of gender. And where the subversive deviations for a queer-feminist digital future might lie.

Lorraine Daston is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

The Soirée will finally happen in physical presence and will be held together with basel.codes, a network that organises events on topics related to the digital universe. They will bring along several short movies that shed light on the connection of gender, the division of labour and technology.

For those who want to have a look at the text beforehand, you can find the English version here a few days before the Soirée.

The Soirée will be held in English. All genders are welcome.

BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #20: CARE & EMOTIONS

Tue, 23 November 2021, 20:00

Generationenhaus Neubad, Holeestrasse 119, 4054 Basel

On November 28th, Switzerland will vote about the “Care initiative” (Pflegeinitiative). A few days before the voting, we dedicate the Blasphemic Reading Soirée #20 to two acute feminist issues: care work and emotional labor.

With the book „The Managed Heart“ by Arlie Russel Hochschild, we take a look back at how care labor has manifested itself in the service sector. The book was published in 1983 and has established terms such as „emotional labor“ or „emotion management“ – concepts that remain highly relevant for workers today. The text serves as a base for looking at these terms in relation to current professions where emotions are measured in money value.

At the soirée, Sarah Palin will be our partner in crime. Sarah is a multiinstrumentalist and performer based in Zürich. Besides international touring with different music groups and theatre engagements at the Gessnerallee in Zürich, she is also an ICU nurse that is standing up for better working and caring conditions for the underpaid people who do Care Work. As an activist of the FINTA* group CARE WORK UNITE, Sarah is part of the Feminist Strike Collective in Zürich.

We will read a part of the book together at Generationenhaus Neubad, where a day care center for children as well as a retirement home are located and nursing/care professions are practiced in all their diversity.

The soirée will be held in English. A copy of the text in German will be available. All genders are welcome.

BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #19: Schöne Leichen

25.10.2021, 19:00 Uhr
Schosshaldenfriedhof, Bern
im Rahmen von Tanz in Bern

Zusammen mit dem Festival Tanz in Bern gehen die «Blasphemic Reading Soirées» dahin, wo viele Romanfiguren enden: auf den Friedhof. Mit einem Kapitel aus Elisabeth Bronfens Monografie «Nur über ihre Leiche» werfen wir von dort einen Blick auf die Literatur und andere Künste – und stellen das Verhältnis von Künstler*in und Muse in den Mittelpunkt. Genauer: das Verhältnis von lebendigem Autor und toter Frau. Was fasziniert männliche Autoren, Maler und Regisseure seit Jahrhunderten an der weiblichen Leiche?

An diesem Abend ermöglichen das gemeinsame Vorlesen und Zuhören einen experimentellen und performativen Zugang zum Text. Gelesen und diskutiert wird in deutscher Sprache; eine englische Übersetzung ist möglich.
Eintritt frei / Platzzahl beschränkt.
Anmeldung an vermittung@dampfzentrale.ch

Gastgeber*innen: BRS (vertreten durch Miriam Coretta Schulte, Saskia Läubli, Golnaz Hosseini)

Komplizin: Nane Boemke (Leiterin der Prosektur und Organisation Klinische Anatomie, Universität Bern)

BLASPHEMIC READING SOIRÉE #18: Bäuer*in sucht Land!

26.08.2021, 19:00 Uhr
St. Margarethengut
4102 Binningen
Anfahrt

**english translation below

Die Schweiz und die Bauernhöfe: Wem gehören die Höfe? Wer profitiert von ihnen? Wessen Arbeitskraft bleibt unbezahlt? Die Landwirtschaft ist, nicht nur in der Schweiz, die Lebensgrundlage für viele Menschen. Die Macht- und Besitzverhältnisse und damit die Abhängigkeiten sind nach wie vor stark patriarchal geprägt. Historisch gesehen sind die Besitzverhältnisse auf dem Land entscheidend, denn davon leitet sich ab, wer wieviel von was bekommt. 

Mit der Blasphemic Reading Soirée #18 begaben wir uns einen Abend lang auf die Heuballen auf dem St. Margarethengut hinter dem Bahnhof SBB und lasen zu Silvia Federicis Beobachtungen zu den „Commons“ – ein vielschichtiger Begriff, der oft mit “Allmende” oder “Allgemeingut” übersetzt wird, und der auf ein anderes Produzieren und Verwalten verweist.

Federici erinnerte uns daran, dass Privatisierung von Allgemeingut historisch gesehen meistens mehr zu Lasten der Frauen* fiel und dass sie es auch waren, die sich am stärksten gegen die schleichende Abschaffung der Commons einsetzten. Von historischen Kämpfen und wilden Utopien versucht Federici eine feministische Perspektive zu entwickeln, wie wir Commons heute neu denken können. 

Und ganz konkret? Was ist überhaupt die Situation der Bäuer*innen in der Schweiz? Kompliz*in Jo Bucher betreibt einen Biohof im Luzerner Seetal. Gemeinsam versuchten wir Theorien und Realität aufeinander prallen zu lassen. Hier ein Interview mit Jo Bucher aus an.schläge: https://anschlaege.at/das-ist-die-chefin/

Herzlichen Dank an die Christoph Merian Stiftung.

———————————————————————————————–

Farmer* wants Land!

The Soirée will be held primarily in German but some English translations of the text will be available. In the discussion, we will find a solution to translate upon need.

Switzerland and it’s agricultural tradition: who owns the land? Who benefits and whose labor remains unpaid? Agriculture is the foundation of life, not only in Switzerland. The power and ownership structures and thus the dependencies are still strongly patriarchal. The question of who owns the land is decisive, because from this it is derived who gets how much of what.

With the Blasphemic Reading Soirée # 16, we spent an evening at the St. Margarethengut behind the SBB train station and read about Silvia Federici’s observations on the commons, which refers to a different agricultural production and management tradition.

Federici reminds us that, historically, privatization has mostly been at the expense of women and that it was them who were the most strongly opposed to the creeping abolition of commons. From historical struggles and wild utopias, Federici tries to develop a feminist perspective on how we can rethink the commons today.

And in concrete terms? What is the situation of farmers in Switzerland anyway? Accomplice Jo Bucher runs an organic farm in Lucerne. Together we try to let theories and reality collide.

Many thanks to the Christoph Merian Foundation.

 

Wir sind zurück!

Die Zeit verrinnt, die mutierenden Varianten sitzen uns im Nacken und dennoch: Es geht ja doch immer weiter! Wahrscheinlich war es selten dringender, gemeinsam zu lesen und vor allem zu diskutieren, nachdem angesichts all den Unsicherheiten unserer Pandemie-geprägten Gegenwart sich Fronten oft verhärten, als dass man einander zuhört. 

Wir haben uns in den letzten Monaten neu orientiert und sind vor allem einer Fährte gefolgt, die uns immer schon ein Anliegen war: Wie kann man die Blasphemic Reading Soirées so organisieren, dass die inhaltliche Ausrichtung, die Auswahl der Texte, der Methoden und der Kompliz_innen für die einzelnen Abende breit aufgestellt wird? 

Wir haben deshalb unseren Magic Circle erweitert und ein Netzwerk an Personen eingeladen, die mit ihrer Neugier, ihrer Leidenschaft für die gemeinsame Soirée-Sache und ihren Interessen die Soirées in Zukunft inhaltlich mitprägen werden. Das ist unser Motherboard, wie sonst, sollten wir sie nennen. Und nein, für diese Umstrukturierung waren  keine Management-Consultants vonnöten, sondern nur dieser wunderbare, neue BRS-Schwarm: Alessandro Schiattarella, Franca Schaad, Friederike Zenker, Golnaz Hosseini und Tyra Wigg.

Infos zur nächsten Soirée folgen asap!