APRÈS LA LETTRE__SPEECH & EFFECT NINA TABASSOMI e MARKUS SCHENNACH

Nina Tabassomi and Markus Schennach on a series of discursive events about the potential of non-discriminatory speech at the TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol

What does it mean to speak in a non-discriminatory manner? And why is there no positive term for such speech-acting? This absence seems all the more astonishing in view of the widespread knowledge that we shape our reality in speaking. Generally accepted linguistic rules are the products of firmly established and unfounded hierarchies and power relationships, which we stabilize and reaffirm whenever we speak. How can we modify our everyday life by selecting and using our language more carefully? What responsibilities do we have when we speak institutionally?

At the TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol in July and August 2018 these questions were explored from the perspectives of philosophy, political science, media studies, art, linguistics and theatre studies in a series of lectures by Amara Antilla, Matthias Dell, Nikita Dhawan, Marie-Luisa Frick, Koku G. Nonoa and Anatol Stefanowitsch. The series was conceived by Nina Tabassomi and Markus Schennach, who will summarize the previous discussions at ar/ge kunst and revisit them with the audience in Bolzano/Bozen.

Short Bios:
Nina Tabassomi is a curator and theatre scholar. Having worked in Berlin (KW Institute for Contemporary Art), Kassel (Fridericianum) and New York (Ludlow 38), she is now director of the TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol, a position she has held since the beginning of 2017. Among others, Nina curated the group exhibitions “Infrastructures of Pain”, “Accentisms” and “Sex” as well as solo exhibitions of work by Maha Maamoun, Eric Baudelaire and Emeka Ogboh.

Markus Schennach is a media activist and political scientist. Having been a social worker and then managing director of the Tyrolean street magazine 20er, in 2003 he became managing director of FREIRAD, a non-commercial Innsbruck radio station. He has held various positions on the board of the Austrian Association of Non-commercial Radio Stations and was its chairman for eight years.