At the same time, we go for a broader scope of queer, as in non-binary thinking and actions to change the established narratives, history, the way society is organized. Further on it will be giving space to where art overlaps with academia and activism, in particular thinking around (queer) bodies in various public spaces — they be virtual, in the history books, or in the street. More specific: Some of the people involved will question which bodies are seen and heard/represented in these public spaces; how our architectures are built and for whom; what is left out of our common narratives; how the body itself can be a tool for activist expressions (dance, performance, choreography).

The participants are both local, national, and international — we've been working with most of them before, some for years. A backdrop for the symposium is also the exhibition by Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz — a duo working with queerness and (in)visibility for a substantial time — ‘Walk Silently in the Dark Until Your Feet Become Ears’, at display at Kunstnernes Hus until 25th February. This event is part of a much longer conversational travel. Welcome to a double thought and pleasure session building on a series started at Kunstnernes Hus, fall 2018. Roll out the red carpet.

Produced in collaboration with Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo. Realised with generous support from the Fritt Ord
Foundation.

The second day of the symposium we follow up on queer perspectives on how to move, inhabit, and challenge — to ‘hack’ — various architectures and public spaces. With us today: Louis Schou-Hansen, Maike Statz, Exutoire (Paul-Antoine Lucas and Bùi Quý Son), Harald Beharie, Tominga O’Donnell, Koyote Millar, Jan Trinh, Mabell Holand, and Memoar.

12:00 Part 1: Dangerous fictions

Doors open, host Mabell Holand.

Artist talk by dancer and choreographer Louis Schou-Hansen. Louis’ work lands somewhere between dance and visual arts. Its trans-disciplined practice encompasses formats such as performances, making dances, performing, writing, and sometimes curating. Louis’ work dives into speculative fiction as a tool to investigate, dissect, and denaturalize how bodies have been sculpted through violent Western fairytales. Here, utilizing counterfactual history in addition to queer and trans-feminist epistemologies to produce counter-narratives. Yes, please.

12:45 Part 2: Speculative thinking on queering architecture

Maike Statz: ‘In/visibility in Space’ There is a tension between being seen and unseen in space: a brightly lit street at night can create both feelings of safety and exposure. Merging personal experience, examples from architecture, queer and feminist thinking and her own artistic work, Maike will present her thoughts around notions of visibility an invisibility in space and space making practices. From dining tables to dance floors, how are we both shaped by and shaping our environments? What are the visible and invisible power dynamics at play? Maike Statz is an Australian Bergen-based interior architect and artist interested in the relationship between bodies and space.

The duo Exutoire (Paul-Antoine Lucas and Bùi Quý Sơn) On a practice of making / A queer practice in the making. Exutoire is a transdisciplinary critical spatial practice that looks to the intersection of art, architecture, and activism to investigate social, spatial, and material justice. Their practice finds its form in a research-by-design approach that focuses on the making of spaces, objects, and social infrastructure, and the creation of knowledge platforms which bring forth underrepresented discourses and marginalized voices. Exutoire is self-critical, ultra-referential, queer, and seeks to transgress norms and their reproductive character, explore the expressions and impacts of trans-normativity, and advocate for the common good. — A virtual contribution from Vietnam.

13:30 Part 3: Meet dancer and choreographer Harald Beharie

Harald is a Norwegian-Jamaican performer and choreographer based in Oslo, Norway. While applying various formats and contexts his practice looks into alternative modes of being, dancing, and existing together while questioning notions of normativity. Harald holds an interest for the unpolished, the DIY, and vulnerability of being in the unknowing. Some of the leading interests in his work at the moment are dissecting known physical narratives and opening for a conscious naivety and playfulness while indulging into practice of the pathetic, collapsing, joyful, failing, and persistent body. In 2023, Harald’s solo work Batty Bwoy (2022) won the Hedda Award (Heddaprisen) for the Best Dance Show.

Part 4: Dr Tominga O’Donnell: ‘Queer representation in the museum’

Tominga O’Donnell is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at MUNCH, where they curated the programme Munchmuseet on the Move (2016–2019), adopting a queer curatorial approach and commissioning a range
of off-site art projects. At the new museum on Oslo’s waterfront, O’Donnell is the curator of solo exhibitions with Camille Henrot, Sandra Mujinga, Piya Wanthiang, Admir Batlak, and Constance Tenvik (2024); the inaugural MUNCH Triennale — ‘The machine is us’ — together with Stefano Collicelli Cagol; and a series of performance commissions in collaboration with Ingrid Moe, which include new works by Bendik Giske, Manuel Pelmuş, Camille Norment, and Brendan Fernandes. — Based on years of collaboration we promise this is not to be missed.

14:15 Part 5: Panel: ‘Queer architectures; the rooms in which we maneuver’

With Louis Schou-Hansen, Mabell Holand, Maike Statz, Harald Beharie, Tominga O’Donnell (moderator) and special guests Koyote Millar and Jan Trinh.

Before we go for a glass, get to know one of the largest projects Karmaklubb* is involved in during 2024; Memoar and OSLOOVE, writing an alternative history of the City of Oslo. Presentation by Memoar’s Cathrine Hasselberg.

Further reading about everyone involved.

Karmaklubb* is an autonomous nomadic queer platform, a space for critical reflection, and celebration. Besides club evenings and nights, the programme consists of open conversations, curatorial work, screenings, artist talks, film production, panels, concerts, performance art, Drag, wine tastings, ale, and sometimes food. Things that are nice for the whole being. Since 2018 Karmaklubb* has realised more than 250 projects, among them hosted events of various sorts in addition to launching an extensive number of other projects on- and offline. Karmaklubb* is also a publishing and research platform, the IGWTLI publishing (established in 2018), that exists as essays, letters and gifts, transcripts, experimental written encounters, in addition to listening sets, podcasts, and an archive of ‘thought & pleasure’ — and new forms constantly to be explored. Critical reflections as well as pure joi (sic), anchored in the Karmaklubb* ever morphing and transcending practice with people being part of the travel.

Partners and collaborators include museums, artist driven initiatives, print houses, publishers, a wide range of organisations and individuals working within the fields of arts and culture, rights and freedom of speech, as well as gastronomy and nightlife. Some of the most recent venues and supporters are DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; The National Museum, Oslo; Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; The Office for Contemporary Art Norway; MUNCH, Oslo; Preus Museum, national museum for photography, Horten; Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; KODE Art Museums and Composer Homes, Bergen; Bergen Kjøtt; Meteor International Theatre Festival, Bergen; Kunsthall Trondheim; Samfundet, Trondheim; Det Gamle Biblioteket, Oslo; BLÅ, Oslo; Ingensteds, Oslo; ØSTRE, Bergen, and many more. Karmaklubb* is organised by Tine Semb