Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin 

November 2022 – Februar 2023
Curated by Sonja Lau

The group exhibition Guilty, guilty, guilty! Towards a Feminist Criminology undertakes a feminist assessment of jurisdictional power. The focus is on “women on trial”—female artists, “bad mothers,” women defendants and women plaintiffs on a rather lost cause. In this context, the courtroom does not only appear as a site of legal assessment, but primarily as a space in which a political or ideological image of women is always implicitly negotiated and constructed. What else, beyond the juridical paragraphs, is debated here? And how can we render this hidden discourse visible?

“The face of war is unwomanly” stated journalist Svetlana Alexievich in her a seminal book of the same title, and the same seems to apply to the juridical history of female delinquency, women’s lawbreaking, and “unlawful” resistance. As sociologist Carol Smart has argued since the late 1970s, there is striking lack when it comes to assessing a female criminology, and even more so if we dare to think of it as a feminist criminology. To fathom the latter is one of the aims of this project.

Utilizing a diverse range of methods and forms, including sound, film, collage, installation, research-based works, and activist practices, the artists will navigate through the juridical and bureaucratic sphere, consider alternative evidence, and reflect on double standards. They consider the trials of female concentration camp guards in postwar Germany (Dominique Hurth), the case of a Palestinian underage girl detained at the gateway of an Israeli settlement (Roee Rosen), the fatal stabbing of Marwa El-Sherbini at the Dresden court (Noa Gur), the hunting down of terrorist Patricia Hearst (Dennis Adams), and the precarious conditions of queer youth in American juvenile detention centers (Sam Richardson, Krystal Shelley and Shevaun Wright, conceived by Suzana Milevska). They also address legal constructs of femininity and motherhood (Barbara Breitenfellner, Susanne Sachsse), the distribution of guilt in divorce and child custody trials (Nika Dubrovsky, Ekaterina Shelganova), as well as the particular case of the Zwi Migdal transatlantic coerced prostitution mafia (Galit Eilat). They ultimately and importantly (Rüzgâr Buşki, İpek Duben) consider cases of killings in self-defense – and those who were not able to defend themselves.

The common grounds remain the respective attempt to relocate the conviction of “being guilty” in the social and political conditions. Guilty of murder, or guilty of being alive? Guilty of breaking the law, or guilty of breaking it “unwomanly”?

Guilty, guilty, guilty! Towards a Feminist Criminology responds to these questions in two ways. First, by providing access to a specific storage of “feminist knowledge” of the accused female that is usually excluded from view or silenced in dusty mountains of files. More importantly, by creating a sense of coherence and solidarity between otherwise parceled, uprooted, or assumingly singular incidents of female disobedience—as a major key to a feminist reading of the law.

Public programming

Thursday, November 24, 2022, 7pm
Rüzgâr Buşki in conversation with Yasemin Çakal and Nayuk (Nazlı Mayuk)
In the context of the International Day for the Eliminiation of Violence against Women
Kunstraum Kreuzberg

Thursday, January 12, 2023, 7pm
Dominique Hurth
Reading, Private handbags may not be carried to the field. Notes on the Aufseherin Uniform
Kunstraum Kreuzberg

Wednesday, January 18, 2023, 7pm
Roee Rosen, Kafka for Kids
German premiere of the film Kafka for Kids (Rosen, 2022, 111 minutes) in presence of the artist, moderated by Hito Steyerl, introduction: Sonja Lau   
HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1)

Sunday, February 19, 2023, 7pm
Finissage
Buchpremiere / Catalogue Launch Guilty, guilty, guilty! 
Kunstraum Kreuzberg

Curated by: Sonja Lau
Curatorial Assistant: Shohreh Shakoory

Participating artists and theoreticians: Dennis Adams, Barbara Breitenfellner,Rüzgâr Buşki, İpek Duben, Nika Dubrovsky, Galit Eilat, Noa Gur, Dominique Hurth,Kwiekulik, Suzana Milevska in collaboration with Sam Richardson, Krystal Shelley and Shevaun Wright, Roee Rosen, Susanne Sachsse, Ekaterina Shelganova

In acknowledgement of, among many others: Marianne Bachmeier, Yasemin Çakal, Çilem Doğan, Patricia Hearst, Krestina, Angelina and Maria Khachaturyan, Marwa El-Sherbini, Nevin Yıldırım

 

Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien is an organisation of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg District Council.

The project is funded by Senate Department for Culture and Europe: the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF) and Exhibition Fund Municipal Galleries.

Made possible with the kind support of Institut Français, Berlin; Tarabya Cultural Academy, Istanbul; Danila-Freitag, Agency for the Performing Arts; and the Berlin Artistic Research Grant Programme.

re: von der poesie im recht

re on poetics within law

 

Studio Bethanien, Berlin

December 7, 2021, 6pm – 10pm

 

 

A performative event by :

Sonja Lau

With:

Nika Dubrovsky

Dominique Hurth

Susanne Sachsse

Ekatarina Shelganova

 

 

The project “RE: von der poesie im recht” takes its point of departure in the dynamics between women and law, between motherhood/female artisthood at court and on juridical trials.

“RE: von der poesie im recht” thus invests in a feminist inquiry into contemporary jurisdiction and the role the female subject and body is attributed therein. What is, actually, debated here beyond the realms of the juridical paragraphs, which hidden layers of meaning are to be drawn from the judgment and the public recpetion of “women at court”, what is lurking within the language of bureaucracy? Last but not least, how can we develop modes of expression, a.o. by means of public discourse, performance and other aesthetic gestures, that allow for a critical, collective evaluation, that can both generate knowledge and solidarity?

In order to do so, “RE: von der poesie im recht” will also refer quite precisely to a current phenomenon, that is rarely discussed in critical theory, but finds itself nevertheless in a tangible, sombre increase: divorce and child custody trials, which are grounded more than often in a juridical/political evaluation of the female subject. With “RE: von der poesie im recht”, we are looking closer at these scenarios, using both concrete experiences and “real”, personal cases as well as the artistic and intellecutal imagination, in order to turn the heremtics of the trial and the silence of the files into important material for the shaping of a new feminist critique.

 

 

Program

 

 

18h00

Sonja Lau (Host)

Und es wird regnen…. Eine Gerichts-Oper (Reprise)

Sound Performance

Aus Auszügen aus Gerichtsakten einer familiengerichtlichen Verhandlung ensteht ein Narrativ, das der juristische Apparat den „Eskalationsprozess“ nennt, dessen Gewalt aber über die involvierten Personen hinaus auch auf Ebene der Sprache und der teilnehmenden juristischen und bürokratischen Organe stattfindet. Eine Analyse von dem, was sich im Apparat der Rechtssprechung niederschlägt (aktenkundig wird), was als toter Rest übrig bleibt, wenn alles schon geschehen ist.

18h30 

Nika Dubrovsky

In Conversation with …….

Divorce Rights, Child Custody, and the Violence of Bureacracy

Zoom-Panel 

19h30

Dominique Hurth

Kinderszenen

Performance (Screening)

20h00

Ekatarina Shelganova

An alternate history of the lost son. 

Work presentation / Performed Essay

21h00

Sonja Lau

Outro

Und es wird regnen…. (Reprise)

 

 

 

 

III. Biographies

 

SUSANNE SACHSSE (*1965) ist Schauspielerin und Performance-Künstlerin. Sie hat in diversen Inszenierungen und Projekten, u.a. von Heiner Müller, Robert Wilson, Bruce La Bruce, Keren Cytter, Heinz Emigholz und Yael Bartana, mitgewirkt, und kollaboriert regelmäßig mit dem Musik-Kollektiv Xiu Xiu und dem Autor Paul B. Preciado. In ihrer Arbeit adaptiert SACHSSE Bilder weiblicher Stereotype ad absurdum (siehe „Serious Ladies“, Arsenal Living Archive). Im Rahmen der 17. Venedig Biennale war sie als „Helene Duldung“ maßgeblich an der Bespielung des Deutschen Pavillons beteiligt. https://www.adkdw.org/de/article/1381_original_sin_a_concert

 

DOMINIQUE HURTH (*1985 in Colmar) beschäftigt sich in den Formaten Installationen, Ausstellungen und Publikationen mit der Lesbarkeit von Objekten und historischen Ereignissen. Ihre Arbeiten wurden international in Museen und Galerien ausgestellt (u.a. Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin). Sie war Leiterin des Projektes «Bilder, Stimmen und Klischees: SS-Aufseherinnen des Frauen-Konzentrationslagers Ravensbrück», Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück (2020) und beschäfigt sich aktuell mit der Objektbiografie der weiblichen Uniform der Darstellung von Täterinnen. https://dominiquehurth.com/

NIKA DUBROVSKY (*1967 in St. Petersburg) ist Kuratorin, Theoretikerin, Herausgeberin und Aktivistin. Gemeinsam mit David Graeber gründete sie das „Museum of Care“, einer hybriden Institution, die sich für die Produktion sozialer Beziehungen einsetzt, und recherchierte zur Bürokratie als Gewaltform. Daraus entstand u.a. das Project „UPRISINGS“, das sich geschiedenen Frauen aus der ehm. DDR widmete, deren Entschädigungszahlungen mit der Wende eingestellt wurden. DUBROVSKY hat verstärkt zu genderbasiertem Unrecht geforscht, und auch eigene Gerichtserfahrungen gemeinsam mit Theoretiker*innen untersucht.

EKATARINA SHELGANOVA lebt und arbeitet in St. Petersburg als Fotografin und Videokünstlerin. 2018 gründetet sie die „Moving Gallery“, einer wandernden Ausstellungseinheit im öffentlichen Raum, die in Gestalt einer sozialistischen Umkleidekabine an verschiedenen Orten in St Petersburg auftritt. SHELGANOVA hat sich für ihre Arbeit mehrfach vor Gericht verteidigen müssen, was auch zu einer gerichtlich erzwungenen Trennung von ihrem Sohn geführt hat. Für die Ausstellung wird SHELGANOVA eine alternative Geschichte ihrer fotografischen Arbeit entwickeln, die die juristische Konfrontation subtil mit einschließt. https://cargocollective.com/ekaterinashelganova