Fugitive Archives

Questioning queer archiving practices together

 

 

 

Inspired by the lessons of decolonial and queer-feminist knowledge and experience, a participatory workshop was hosted on Sunday, February 27, 2022 at the America Memorial Library to pose questions about alternative media and ontologies to queer archives that reflect the dominant narratives of questioning queer BiPOC stories.

After a theoretical discussion about queer and decolonial archiving Ahmet Onat put Ilgaz Yalçınoğlu, Merve Namli and Selim Ozadar presents the groundbreaking results of her research aimed at uncovering alternative narratives to the whitewashed history of queer nightlife in Berlin.

In the second part of the workshop, Bilge Emir was moderated, the participants dealt with critical strategies and the queer BiPOC legacy. The participants discussed how public institutions, such as libraries, can be transformed into spaces that enable the unlearning of normative narratives.

 

ABOUT:

Ahmet Onat is a Turkish-born and resident researcher in the field of sociocultural anthropology. In his work he deals with late-liberal security discourses, ephemeral archives, flight and the politics of gender and sexuality in Turkey and Germany. After his undergraduate studies in sociology at the Koc University in Istanbul, he completed postgraduate studies at the Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin. He later attended Columbia University in the Department of Anthropology as a Fulbright Scholar and is currently working on his master's thesis.

 

Bilge Emir, who works mainly in the fields of illustration and video, graduated in visual communication from the KHB Weißensee and has been living in Berlin since 2017. Her practice is shaped by combining her experiences with time- and space-based media to develop multi-layered narratives of visual storytelling. Besides her solo work, she appreciates collective productions and has been part of the video collective artıkişler, the student organization interflight and current of the media archiving collective bak.ma.

 

Ilgaz Yalçınoğlu is a Turkish-born musicologist who continues his research in Berlin. After completing his basic studies in musicology, media studies and art history in Marburg, he began his master's degree in musicology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. His main research interests are music cognition, local music cultures, the history of popular music and the politics of sound. In addition to his academic research, he organizes various music events and continues his music journalism with articles and radio broadcasts.

 

Merve Namli is a Berlin-based queer-feminist journalist for the Henrich Böll Foundation, can Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, taz blogs, missy mag and for various international media. She has been working as a simultaneous interpreter for political and cultural institutions for 11 years. She curates concerts and multimedia festivals (Future East Festival, dã¼mtek) and co-programs two monthly radio shows with and for the queer BiPOC music community (Cashmere Radio, THF radio).

 

Selim Ozadar comes from Izmir and currently lives in Berlin. He works as a project manager at WithOst, a civil society organization that promotes cross-border cultural exchange between Europe and neighboring regions. Since 2017 he has co-organized several cultural projects in Germany, including KuirFest Berlin and Dumtek.

 

Fugitive Archives - unheard and unseen is a project by Oyoun as part of the "Europe Challenge", funded by the Europe Culture Foundation and in cooperation with Central and State Library Berlin (ZLB).