“Strange Days” (working title) is about exploring the relationship between strangers, embodiment and community. What is familiar in a stranger, and vice versa? Six international artists are working together to develop a magazine / artist book on this topic. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s text “Strange Encounters”, free “translation” will serve as formal gesture of understanding. To this end, Sara Ahmed’s text “Strange Encounters. Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality” will be prepared section by section and discussed in several Zoom sessions.
Focal topics will include queer feminism, post-coloniality and intersectionality – in particular with regard to the concept of “strangerness” and the figure of the “stranger”, which Ahmed argues are precisely predefined and paradoxically seemingly well-known concepts. They will be loosely interwoven with the concept of translation: Firstly, each of the participants will produce their own contributions. Secondly, these contributions will be loosely “translated” by other artists according to their own criteria. The contributions will be afforded the same amount of space or pages, which openly addresses the topic of hierarchies.
The final product will be a magazine, which will be published online as an e-object that is available to everyone. Finally, a magazine launch in chapter form (in Berlin / Zurich / Vienna) is planned for late autumn 2022 (possibly in exhibition form, but this depends on gaining further funding). Printed versions will also be available for purchase.