Lecken:
Queer Social Reproduction
Queer Social Reproduction
- Tickets At the door
- Cash Payment Only
- Last Admission 9.00 a.m. on June 03
JunI 01 | 20.00 Film screening, Zine-Launch + Round Table
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Far more than a sexual orientation or gender identification, these days queer suggests a dissident political provocation that another world is possible. A world without violence, oppression, or bigotry. How such a world could function and feel like is prefigured in the queer community. But what are the actions, responsibilities, and relationships that go into making queer worlds, homes, spaces, and lives? Who is doing this labor of prefiguring an alternative way of being and coming together, under what conditions, and in exchange for what? And when the crisis of the cost of living is disproportionately affecting queer and disabled folks living in non-traditional arrangements, can we even afford queer relations committed to keeping radical imaginaries alive?
The queerfeminist rave collective, Lecken, dedicates their second zine issue, Queer Social Reproduction, and an evening program surrounding its launch, to these questions. The second day of the program will feature the foremost prefigurative practice of queer worlding – an all-night rave expanded with dance performances, public sculpture, light installations, and a series of polymorphously perverse techno-witchcraft dance floor interventions choreographed by Maria F. Scaroni and restaged for Sophiensæle.
LINE-UP Bad Puppy, Carmen 16, KILLA, marc lohr/PAARTANZ, S Ruston, Skankstasy LIGHTBOX INSTALLATIONS Heather Purcell SCULPTURAL INSTALLATIONS Jonathan James
A production of Lecken in co-production with SOPHIENSÆLE within the frame of Leisure & Pleasure, supported by the Capital Cultural Fund. Media partners: Arts of the Working Class, Berlin Art Link, Rausgegangen, tip Berlin, taz.die tageszeitung.
Wanda Gaimes is a writer, theorist, and curator whose interests span socialist theory and praxis, queer feminism, and underground culture making. Her academic work has appeared in various journals, like New Left Review and Theory & Event, and her book Volunteer Tourism in the Global South, was published with Routledge in 2015. Since co-founding Lecken in 2016, Wanda has contributed to various stage productions and performed at HAU, Sophiensæle, and Tanzkongress. She also DJs under the name Skankstasy, and is the WHOLE TALKS program director for Whole: United Queer Festival.
Zoe Harris is a community organizer and member of the Lecken collective, alongside their work as an independent editor, archivist, and researcher. They produce craftcore wearables and installations as SUPERCROTCH.
Maria F. Scaroni is a dance artist, living in Berlin since 2004. She creates and interprets choreographic works rooted in improvisational practices and altered states of consciousness. Maria also hosts workshops that re-purpose post-modern dance legacies towards technologies for mutual empowerment, crossbreeding somatic practices and anti-oppression frameworks, storytelling and theory to bring somatic literacy in support of a culture of connection. Since 2019, Maria has been performing in Meg Stuart’s works, with whom she collaborates, and since 2020, she has been hosting Social Pleasure Center, a community space for somatic post-activism, queer feminist joyful militancy, radical redistribution of resources and temporary social choreography. https://www.allalways.org/
Heather Purcell’s work is situated in Social Practice. It is influenced by rave culture, pop imagery, and socio-political movements to create zines, live drawing and social sculpture. Her work is centered at the nexus of community, practice, and production. Themes central to Purcell’s practice include play, anti-capitalism, working class, care concepts, urbanism, and queer theory. Moving between community organizing, artistic production and radical pedagogy, she usually works as part of a collective structure to find a shared language that connects disciplines. Together with Maria, she has been co-hosting the community space, Social Pleasure Center since 2020. H-Purcell.com
Jonathan James is a multi-disciplinary, Berlin-based, artist working at an intersection of textile, sculptural, and print-based art and craft. His wood and textile sculptures for Sophiensæle proudly share / show the structure of their making and mirror the color and joy of the community they will be surrounded by.
Lecken is a 10-persons art collective that organizes queer erogenous raves with a strong commitment to the dancefloor. They also create original nightlife performances and installations, initiate community-building technologies (e.g., Social Pleasure Center, a further education syllabus, awareness raising on consent, accountability and harm reduction), run their own awareness team, and occasionally bring out a zine. Lecken’s femme-to-the-front attitude, grounded in a feminist politics of care and accountability, serves as a solid foundation for the unruly somatic, erogenous, and artistic adventurousness unfolding at their raves. Turning 7 this summer, Lecken looks back at 20+ raves in addition to collaborations with festivals, like CTM, Deutscher Tanzkongress, Sophiensæle, and WHOLE: United Queer Festival, which they are a core member of. To find out more about Lecken, including an archive of their past events and the Lecken reading syllabus, check out lecken.berlin/. Lecken collective members are: Camilla Vatne Barratt-Due, Carmen 16, Wanda Gaimes/Skankstasy, Zoe Harris, KILLA, marc lohr/PAARTANZ, Mariana Nobre Viera, Heather Purcell, S Ruston, Maria F. Scaroni.