LIQUID DEPENDENCIES
Role-playing game by Yin Aiwen (4 session)

“Liquid Dependencies: What does a decentralised caring society look like” (2021- present) is a multiplayer role-playing game for 10 players in which they build long-term mutual caring relationships. In the course of the game the players are assigned to characters which they need to bring alive with their own experiences. In 4 to 5 hours the players “spend” 20 to 30 years of life together and cope with a series of personal and social events.

Liquid Dependencies (DE) is co-created by Liquid Dependencies Theory (YIN Aiwen, Yiren ZHAO and Zoe ZHAO) and Elli Kuruş, a version begin with the reflection of the social reality in Leipzig and Germany at large and now in Cologne. At Temporary Gallery Liquid Dependencies invited people to explore together peer-to-peer caring relationships as the cornerstone for a commons-oriented, caring society.

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A SEAHORSE ON THE TABLE
Creative workshops by Lena Anouk Philipp (2 editions)

Lena Anouk Philipp’s paintings, drawings and sculptures invite you to explore a world of hybrid beings and imaginary landscapes. Colours and shapes surprise with their dreamy, surrealistic quality. They create an uncanny world with fragile and tender beings, each telling us another story.

During the isolation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the artist started making small paper sculptures and sent them to people she wanted to (re)connect with or stay in touch with. These sculptures consist of many parts to be assembled. The fragile objects became analogous to the fragility of human connections, and the act of assembling them a metaphor for the work one puts into sustaining them.

Lena Anouk Philipp offered two workshops in which participants created a mobile miniature, that in the tradition of mail art, shall be sent to a person of wish.

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WORKSHOP PERFORMANCE
with Joanna Stange & iSaAc Espinoza Hidrobo

Joanna and iSaAc were guiding the audience through some of the essences in their collaborative work and practices explored for their participative rituals and gathering performances. This workshop performance was an invitation to every person curious for nonverbal communication processes, such as colour, movement, sound & party transforming the exhibition spaces. No background in painting, dancing or music was needed – just joy for chocolate!

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CODOMESTICATION
Performance by / starring Albert Bailey Juurak, Alex Bailey, Krõõt Juurak

In March 2019, Krõõt Juurak & Alex Bailey’s CODOMESTICATION had its premiere at Tanzquartier Wien. Back then, they invited the audience to watch the play between themselves and their then one-year old child Albert – who took part as a co-director – in a performative live setting. The trio have performed a version of this work each year following, always under the strict condition that it should be interesting and fun for all three. Albert is now five and is actively directing the performance and deciding on matters of content as well as costumes, props, light etc. So far it is still fun.

The central focus of CODOMESTICATION is on gender-political issues that come up with co-parenting and being parented, by combining affective labour and childcare with artistic work, this work addresses the precarious nature of both.

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IT’S FICTION LIKE A SITCOM
Workshops and listening sessions with Paloma Nana (4 sessions)

This event aspired to open a space for questions around the family that is primarily nourished sensually, emotionally, artistically, and sonically. In the framework of the exhibition “Unruly Kinships”, this workshop series aimed to step away from a purely academic reading and explores the discourse mainly through the sonic and the sensual.

Each session started with a short input to set the sound piece/music video that is to be analysed in a specific context. The participants received a short reading, either in the form of an academic essay, a poem, an article or a song text, to get attuned to the session.

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FESTIVAL OF FEELINGS

We shared our feelings concerning different forms of kinship in our lives – it was a gathering about love, intimacy, bonding, friendship, comradeship, sex, family relationships, and all other forms of being close that we imagine to be possible. We collectively “mothered” ourselves and each other: gave attention, supported and cared – in short, we became the motherers.

The event commenced at 6pm with an intimate reading performance by Liz Rosenfeld. We drifted into the night with readings, performances and music, carried by participants of the Unruly Kinships exhibition and selected contributions from an open call for the Festival of Feelings. A hearty food was be catered by Sofia Steffens, fermented healings drinks served by Julius Metzger, and the hyperlovecollective and Hajnowisko provided sonic acts and music for this unforgettable night.

HEY CALL IT LOVE: THE POLITICS OF EMOTIONAL LIFE
A seminar with Alva Gotby

On the last day of the exhibition Unruly Kinships Alva Gotby joined us for an informal seminar and conversation about her new book, They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life

Comforting a family member or friend, soothing children, providing company for the elderly, ensuring that people feel well enough to work; this is all essential labour. Without it, capitalism would cease to function. They Call It Love investigates the work that makes a haven in a heartless world, examining who performs this labour, how it is organised, and how it might change. In this groundbreaking book, Alva Gotby calls this work ’emotional reproduction’, unveiling its inherently political nature. It not only ensures people’s well-being but creates sentimental attachments to social hierarchy and the status quo. Drawing on the thought of the feminist movement Wages for Housework, Gotby demonstrates that emotion is a key element of capitalist reproduction. To improve the way we relate to one another will require a radical remodelling of society beyond the boundaries of private and public and beyond the spheres of waged work and family life. The fight for alternative modes of kinship has to go hand in hand with abolishing capital as well as other structures of dominance such as race and hetereosexuality.

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With the kind support of:

Mondriaan Fund
Neustart Kultur
Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
Kunststiftung NRW
Creative Europe
The Kingdom of the Netherlands
Kulturamt der Stadt Köln
Deltax contemporary
Hotel Chelsea