Programme

Welcome

15.00

Dr Silvia Steiner, President of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK)  
Kerstin Klauser, Head of Culture, Directorate of Cultural and Social Affairs, Federation of Migros Cooperatives
Isabella Spirig, Dance project manager, Directorate of Cultural and Social Affairs, Federation of Migros Cooperatives
Dr. Nina Mühlemann, Head of IntegrART conference 2021

Lecture Performance

15.30

«Staging self and other»
Perel (US/DE)

Perel's work interrogates the place disability holds in history and our collective memory, or power dynamics around gender and consent. After deconstructing them, what possibilities emerge of actually being together? What would supportive structures actually look like?

Perel will give examples from their work where they challenge existing performance structures and and power dynamics, such as in «More Than Just A Piece of Sky» (2014), where they performed from a glowing bed, in «(do not) despair solo and Pain Threshold» (2016-present) where they engage the practice of inviting nondisabled audience members to perform «care work» for them with varying degrees of erotics and intimacy, and in their most recent work, «Life (Un)Worthy of Life» (2019-present) where they deconstruct the Talkshow format, inviting the audience into a discussion of historic ableism and anti-semitism. 

17.10

«Rethinking structures»
Perspectives performers: Sophia Neises (DE), Alexandrina Hemsley (UK), Edwin Ramirez (CH), Diana Anselmo (IT), Perspectives Institutions: Michelle Akanji & Inga Laas, Gessnerallee Zürich (CH)

Four different disabled artists discuss how they create new structures within their work, and how they can be reconciled with the conditions given by cultural institutions, funding bodies and politics – or not. What would disabled artists actually need for inclusion, what work needs to be done to get there, and by whom? And how can working conditions be created which make space for intersectional experiences? What potential is opening up when different voices and experiences are centered and we break away from existing power structures?

Performance

20.00

«Sketch of Togetherness»
Lea Moro (CH), Nina Mühlemann (CH)
With «Sketch of Togetherness», an artistic work is created specifically for the IntegrART conference. A politician and a disabled artist spend a day together, joined by a camera. At the conference they meet again – this time in front of an audience.

«Complicated Utopias»
Noa Winter (DE) und Alexandrina Hemsley (UK)

Join curator and activist Noa Winter and choreographer and writer Alexandrina Hemsley in their IntergrART keynote where they sift their way through the hope, love and rage of advocacy. They will each share why  they create care-based spaces, try to insist on cultural institutions moving beyond performative inclusion or solidarity and chase what they know in their bodies; a refusal and an opening.

There will be poetry, typical rants and moments to acknowledge when the work becomes too much, when structural oppression exhausts, when their hearts break and when working as a disabled person with other intersecting identities becomes about enduring the realities made by those with more power.

How to exist more safely in systems which are not made by or for disabled people? Are cultural institutions prepared to realise that care and accountability are as important as representation?

Panel Discussion

11.20

«Creative perspectives and political structures»
Performers (CH): Lulzim Plakoli, Edwin Ramirez, Lua Leirner and politicians: Isabel Garcia (GP), Islam Alijaj (ES), moderation: Alex Oberholzer

Four different disabled artists discuss how they create new structures within their work, and how they can be reconciled with the conditions given by cultural institutions, funding bodies and politics – or not. What would disabled artists actually need for inclusion, what work needs to be done to get there, and by whom? And how can working conditions be created which make space for intersectional experiences? What potential is opening up when different voices and experiences are centered and we break away from existing power structures?

Keynote

14.00

«In an arts funding system that is inherently ableist, how can disabled artists not just survive, but thrive?» 
Jo Verrent (UK), Unlimited, Rebekka Fässler (Stadt Zürich Kultur)

Jo Verrent is senior producer for Unlimited. Unlimited is an arts commissioning programme that aims to embed work by disabled artists within the UK and international cultural sectors, reach new audiences and shift perceptions of disabled people. Working across all artforms, sizes, scales and audiences, Unlimited has set out to prove that the skills and talents of disabled artists are, indeed, unlimited, and that there is no part of the cultural sector which should not have disabled artists embedded within in. Jo will explain how and why funders invest within Unlimited and in turn, how it operates as a funder of disabled artists. She will outline why radical systemic change throughout the whole ecology of the funding is the only long term option for true equality and equity. Gaining funding based on the inherent aesthetic benefits of disabled-led art, rather than using the negative charity ‘pity me’ model for gaining disability related funds, can be a challenge, but an essential one. Deficit-focused fundraising leads to enforcing a dominant view of ‘disabled as deficit’ which is not only untrue, but also inherently damaging to the sector as a whole, as it denies the benefit disabled artists bring to the developments of artform, widening of audiences and much, much more. So how to turn that view? After Jo Verrent's input, she will be in conversation with Rebekka Fässler.

Workshops

15.00

At four workshops, conference attendees can get familiar with the conference topic
«Rethinking structures»  

Workshop 1: Tanja Erhart / Katharina Senk (AT) «Senses and Sensuality as part of digital collaboration» / ONLINE

Tanja Erhart and Katharina Senk invite to a digital workshop, in which they make their artistic practice of digital collaboration, access and care as well as multilingualism experienceable. How can collaboration over the screen open up different and new ways for us to see each other, listen to each other, perceive each other and communicate with each other? Through their multisensory work they explore senses and sensuality as tools that create access towards each other and allows their confrontations with the ableist world to transform. Workshop in english and german

Workshop 2: Dalibor Šandor / Saša Asenti? (SRB) / ONLINE

What makes a monster?
What or who is a monster?
What kind of monsters exist around us?

The workshop will be based on conversation, movement and imagination exercises that come from Dalibor Šandor’s experience and motivation of making his performances: “We are not monsters” and “Something very special”. Dalibor Šandor will be accompanied with his long-time friend, colleague and comrade Saša Asenti?. They will conduct the workshop in English language.

Workshop 3: Islam Alijaj / Lea Moro (CH): «Initiating Encounters» / ON SITE

This project, based on the «Sketch of Togetherness» project, is co-led by Islam Alijai and Lea Moro. We explore the options for getting to know each other and for encounters between two people who are unknown to each other, but also as a temporary workshop group. The various personal encounters offer insights into different realities of life and day-to-day existence as well as professional worlds, individual biographies and differing cultural, political and social contexts. Last but not least, each encounter with a stranger also enables one to gain new perspectives on oneself, as it always raises questions about one’s own life reality. This workshop seeks to enable the perspectives of meeting, talking and interacting with each other in an inquisitive, open and playful, creative way.

Workshop 4: Alessandro Schiattarella / Alice Giuliani: «The Army of Love» / ON SITE
We know that the topic of rethinking structures is a vast one, and in order to approach it within the framework of IntegrART, we at «The Army of Love» would like to do so from the point of view of «micro-awareness»: what are the structures in our gestures, our movements, our language, our interaction with others that slip into a grey area due to daily repetition? How do we tighten the net of our attention and de-automate our everyday life so that we can detect the hidden patterns? The theme of rethinking structures also points to a need for flexibility: what do we need in order not to solidify in our articulations, in our thoughts, in our interactions with others? The workshop will start with a series of playful exercises, alone or in pairs, which will gradually develop into group exercises. Respecting in all phases the current anti-covid measures. In our repertoire we often use speech, movement, physical contact and interaction with objects2. No special experience or skills are required to participate, as we will adapt to the needs of the participants. The workshop will end with a feedback round where participants will be invited to share their thoughts and proposals. Also, anyone who would like to join The Army of Love is welcome.
www.thearmyoflove.net; www.schiattarella.info. 

Conclusion

17.15

Four participants from the fields of politics, cultural funding and cultural institutions, who have been following the conference, describe their observations and assessments in this closing discussion.