Laurie Penny „Unspeakable Things – Sex, Lies and Revolution“
The undoubtedly loudest and most controversial female voice of the radical left on feminism and capitalism.
Presenter: Hannah Wölfl
Reading & Discussion - in English
19.11.2016, 19:30, Main Hall
Admission/Tickets: EUR 6,-/4,-
The most important young feminist of our time
(Die Zeit) was born in 1986 in London, studied English literature at Oxford University and is now a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and the editor of the New Statesman. Alongside her articles for The Guardian and The New York Times, it was her her book “Meat Market. Female Flesh Under Capitalism.” (2011), an inciting analysis of how the female body gets disempowered and regulated in capitalism and the media, that made her well-known. “Meat Market” is a piece of feminist dialectic that reveals the bodies of women as the sexual base for capitalist cannibalism.
Likewise, in her sharp-tongued book “Unspeakable Things. Sex, Lies and Revolution” (2014) she cleverly challenges neoliberalism and the obsolete gender order that supports it. Laurie Penny ruthlessly dissects modern feminism and classist politics while giving account of her own experiences as a journalist and an activist in subcultures. It is a book that gives people who have been silenced a voice to utter the unspeakable.
As part of the Open Mind Festival, Laurie Penny will relate some of her central texts on feminism and capitalism and discuss them together with presenter Hannah Wölfl and the audience.
Since thewomanis the most successful product that is being traded in capitalism, criticism against capitalism at the same time always needs to be criticism against the patriarchy.
Concerts following at 21:30, Studio, Admission free!
Fudkanista, Running Fetus, Hyenaz
Douche Punk & Riot-Grrrl meets queer-feminist Electronic-Music-Performance-Duo and anti-pro Femme-Fatal-Karaoke.
Fudkanista (A)
Fudkanista is an anti-pro femme fatal trio-duo (4 buttcheeks) with home-made karaoke-electronic beats, battle-box and punk toenail-blues.
Running Fetus (A)
The band calls their genre “douche punk” and this manifests itself on stage as a godless, excessive hardcore-riot. Inspired by the sex drive of D.A.F, the spirit of Jello Biafra and the audacity of the early 90s riot-grrrl culture.
soundcloud.com/running-fetus/sets
Hyenaz (USA/AUS/GER)
are the queer-feminist performance artists Mad Kate and Adrienne Teicher. Both live and work in Berlin. Their live shows have become iconic due to their emphatic and fascinating nature. Fellow musician Peaches, who has supported the duo before, describes them as a “performative monster duo” and Kaltblut Magazine named them “Best Live Act in Berlin”.
The art of saying no
In 2016, true to the motto „AUSweg. Das wesentliche NEIN“ (engl. „Way OUT. The essential NO“), the Open Mind Festival dedicates itself to the constructive disappearance, the emancipatory “enough is enough”, the liberating refusal, but also the escape from the self and consequently, escapism.
Contrary to the Brexit-hypothesis and other populist polarization, where the goal is to generate (written) dissent, it is not easy to say no. Our brains are conditioned to avoid conflict in interpersonal relations and therefore often opt for a „Yes“. In many cultures, there is no word for „no“; instead languages like Chinese use f.i. paraphrases. Not clarity but compliance with social norms is foregrounded here. Saying „no“ requires confidence and this begins in the mind.
Similarly, this applies to the active, liberating escape from hopeless situations. Having realized that you cannot change the system, it is legitimate to turn your back to it. It is no sign of failure or weakness, but of intelligence when you try to find alternatives and live.
In both cases, the autonomous no and the constructive escape in the best case lead to personal freedom. Even though living it is often not easy, no one has the right to ignore their own dignity.
Cornelia Anhaus
Curator Open Mind Festival
