Workshop: Mightier than a Trampled Flower
Mightier than a Trampled Flower is an ongoing Curatorial Focus of Oyoun, which centralizes experiences of women* and queer bodies in wars, from decolonial, anti-militarist and intersectional perspectives. One of the main aims of the project is to deconstruct the canonical, nation-state narratives of war and woman*hood.
Besides two projects AS* PAPANGUS and MOUDJAHIDATE*, two workshops were held in the spring and late summer of 2022 with a small group of artists, curators and researchers. Participants were Yukiko Nagakura, Nadja Makhlouf, Margo Okazawa Rey, Bruna Amaro and the curator Dami Choi for the facilitation. As a space to align, exchange and think together, these online workshops posed and probed a set of questions which weave the practices and the realities that the Curatorial Focus dwells on.
Can we think of woman*being as an anti-hegemonic, non-binary and fluid concept(s) and way(s) of being? – Being a woman in surviving, breathing and mourning with the dehumanized in layers of violence. Whose struggle do the stories, monuments, names, dates and stories commemorate? How can we refrain from reproducing nationalism, militarism and domination in decolonial queer*feminist thinking? These thoughts circled, resonated and were repeated in the conversations of the participants. In the following we would like to share some moments from the workshop with you:
I wanted to make the invisible visible. I wanted to share that there were many women* that decided to take part in the independence. … This sadness, this anger, this frustration helped me to start a project. … I wanted to understand the Algerian women* before the war, during the war and after, as an evolution of fighters, Moudjahidate*. … If no one takes the responsibility for remembering this part of history, these stories will disappear. (Nadja Makhlouf)
The stories of women* in Fukushima, which is based on fieldwork conducted in Fukushima in 2016, clearly told us how women*, mothers* and children are conveniently used by the society which prioritizes economic growth. … The structure of exploitation has not changed since the era of imperial Japan. … Women* who have an ability to give birth have been treated as a reproductive resource of the nation. On the other hand, they are treated as useless when it comes to vitalising the economy, exactly because of their ability to give birth. (Yukiko Nagakura)
… one trans woman* is murdered in Brazil every two days … 30 women* experience physical violence every hour in Brazil. These numbers arise and I am part of that. And we are in a War … How do we create tools that extinguish what kills us? … As* Papangus is a performance about the construction of a collective space of safety, so that we women* can celebrate, dancing, singing and walking. … When can our bodies inhabit their identities to be free? How can we desexualize and naturalize our bodies? (Bruna Amaro)
A feminist vision of genuine security free of militarism and creating a culture of life … How do we collectively explain what we are experiencing and how do we connect the dots? … Thinking about militarism and citizenship, and the patriarchal, masculinist, hetero-sexist nation-states which require the military, e.g. in Japan regardless of Article 9, the way the US military recruited people from Mexico during the invasion of Afghanistan. And this is also how feminism is deployed - This is a feminist ideal, join the military! So it is about acceptance, recognition and citizenship in this militarized world. (Margo Okazawa-Rey)
… or we look into the future? … We, women* and queer bodies are inherently shamanic in the way we act and feel with our bodies. We build bridges among the living, souls and other beings. … It’s about looking into ourselves, making the conversation within us, also a conversation about the patriarchy embodied in ourselves. How do we deal with this endless chain of violence in the name of nation, security, etc? … What kind of fights do we fight as women*? (Dami Choi)
