As part of the Imaginary Republic exhibition curated by Brandon LaBelle and held in Kunsthall 3,11, Bergen, Joulia Strauss leads a one-week workshop dedicated to collectivity and the lessons of forbidden knowledges. The Anarchist Ashram focuses on the presentation and practice of forbidden, discredited and peripheral forms of knowledge. With the current decentering of the West, art is opening up to the deep database of alternative techniques of Enlightenment which are crucial for our socio-political struggles today. The Ashram acts as an Imaginary Republic, where the Imaginary becomes the Real through which to marginalize the perverted, pre-quantic “reality” of biocapitalism. Through such work, we explore ways of manifesting a new social body, undoing and unlearning certain patterns inscribed onto our imaginations. Side effects: we may never be able to return to our depressive ego-based individualistic art studios.
daily gatherings ^^ qi gong lessons ^^ collective drawings ^^ animal spirit portraits ^^ readings ^^ assemblies ^^ secret screenings ^^ teleaffective meetings with athens ^^ new rituals ^^ sound art ^^ ancient greek hymns ^^ mantras ^^ peruvian shamanic healing songs ^^ banned knowledge ^^ queer porn ^^ alternative currencies
Participants: Emma Fuchs Sjövall, Lisa Englesson Hallberg, Hanna Nakken, Vilde Jensen, Maja Chiara Faber, Nitya, Tanja Silvestrini, Clara Mosconi, Brandon LaBelle, Joulia Strauss
This documentation cannot depict tenderness and the warmth of relations created during the Anarchist Ashram, nor can it entertain with porn or shock. It is simply a proof that an art institution can actually make sense and fulfill the ethical, social, and, if you insist, aesthetic needs of our society by transforming into a de-elitist cultural center where an exhibition becomes an environment for a community enjoying an educational format as an art form.
MoLotus sculpture by Joulia Strauss and Clara Mosconi
The „Testo Junkie“ reading group
Teleaffective meeting with Athens: James Simbouras
Modern Astrology with Maja Chiara Faber
Tibetan Pulsing with Nitya
Closing ceremony
Collective artistic practices beyond existing hierarchies are spreading around the world. This peaceful revolution has many beginnings, it consists of numerous autonomous actions to transform our relations. Endless fun of creativity immediately unfolds once the individualist “I” turns into the kind “WE”. This “WE” can not be split by the zombiopolitics* of the paleoliberal** democracy. Once we reconnect to ourselves*** and horizontally root****, the dream of the enlightened society***** doesn’t seem utopean at all … does somebody want to continue, to delete, to edit, to subvert, to start something completely different? (Joulia Strauss)
* Term by Luca Di Blasi ** Term by Luca Di Blasi *** In the sence of decolonizing forms of knowlegde marginalized by the occidental “civilization“ **** With and without Bruno Latour ***** As in the Shambala teachings by Chögyam Trungpa