Promise No Promises!

A point of contact, a common ground is episode 24, following a conversation with music journalist, booking agent, event promoter and translator Yuko Asanuma. In the last few years, I have seen Yuko in different places in Berlin, often in music-related environments but not only. Yuko Asanuma says, the places where we are willing to go to, we recognize each other as part of a different type of community. Although there may be music, it is something else that brings us together. I attended the first “Setten” series of events, part of the agency Yuko Asanuma runs. Setten is a Japanese word meaning both “point of contact” and “common ground”. It is also an invitation for people to meet and amplify each other. There is something slippery about partying, about being together in one place at one time. Even when all the elements seem to be perfect, we may not feel fully present. Other times, unexpectedly, we feel totally connected in places where we don't seem to belong. As Yuko states, you can't really anticipate t

Where does from scratch start? is episode 23, which developed after a conversation with artist Jesse Darling. While I believe that ideas are never entirely our own, there is something very personal in how we express them. Especially when they are joined by life stories, as in Jesse's case. Following Jesse's words during our conversation, the things we do or think come mostly from life experiences. Listening to Jesse, it does not seem accidental how capitalism keeps us strategically busy and tired. Yet, we keep imagining and doing, with what we have and with what we don't have. Perhaps the question is not only how we work, but for what or who we work for. A question I asked Jesse was when does "from scratch" start? The compass is the search for an origin, a beginning, or a starting point. But when the source is multiple, a single origin is quite impossible.

Inhabiting a Tongue Together is the twenty-second episode of The Tale and the Tongue podcast series. It is a conversation with artist Iz Öztat, driven by the curiosity to learn more about Iz and Zişan, Iz’s close collaborator and her alter ego, a ghost she encounters from time to time. As I got to know Zişan better, a sense of time travel came over me. Every episode of her life is a place of struggle, yet also confidence and desire. To follow Zişan brings you to places and times that we have not lived: the Ottoman Empire, the European avant-garde, the memory of the waters of the Danube, the love between women writers in the 1920s... Thanks to Iz Öztat, Zişan makes the past happen differently. The present is a slippery time. It can move us backward and forwards at the same time. The spirit of the Avant-garde of the last century, promoting European modernity, is not so far removed from our present. The relevance of artistic practices is still decided from the same places, even if their actors come from diffe

Getting Along with Discomfort is episode twenty-one of The Tale and the Tongue podcast series, which follows a conversation with curator and researcher Rita Ouédraogo on the importance of conversation and exchanges in processes and learning to get along with discomfort.  Honesty, something that Rita Ouédraogo brings to our conversation, allows us to know what we can do and where we stand. Many misunderstandings in processes come from not explaining from the start what the conditions and intentions of the projects we work on are. Making them available provides a better understanding of the given structures in which we can work but cannot change. As she says, listening is an essential part of conversation. Discomfort is something that Rita relates to many of her experiences, from different positions and meanings. Far from being a stable place, discomfort is a situation that arises, that morphs, and that never quite goes away. What's more, for Rita it can become a curatorial strategy. Acknowledging that discomfo

EVERY GESTURE COUNTS, HOWEVER SMALL, is the 20th episode of the “Tale and the Tongue” podcast series. Full of intimate moments, Sonia Fernández Pan exchanged thoughts over months with Karolina Grzywnowicz, talking about plants, migration, activism and much more. “Dear Karolina, The cuttings of the plants you gave me are taking root in water. I put them on a windowsill so that they are closer to the sun. It is quite telling that plants, which apparently don't move from their place, make you travel so much. But as you say, plants are not as native as they appear to be in many places. How a landscape can be a crime scene and a place full of concealed violence, to borrow your words, reminds me of how the forests of my childhood did not exist in my grandparents' childhood... This podcast also relates to this moment: a shared need to meet and talk. Especially, when many want us to be silent, detached, and indifferent…. A feminist collective called for the need to talk about trees, connecting many, many feminist

MOVING IN MIGRANT RHYTHMS is episode nineteen, which follows a conversation with artist and loud thinker Maya Saravia and the podcast host Sonia Fernández Pan. In their conversation the migrant experience is very present. Maya has lived in different cities since she left Guatemala, including Madrid, Lisbon and Berlin. Even if we are the same person, our bodies do not move in the same way in all places and cultures. Part of the insights Maya and Sonia share have a lot to do with feeling and thinking with other rhythms. One of the music genres that Maya often talks about is raggaeton. The raggaeton rhythms are dangerously catchy. It is one of those music rhythms whose will is stronger than ours. In the statement of one of her projects, she refers to raggaeton as a syncretic event. It is a volcano erupting in the world, driven by the flows of capital, labour, many displacements and musical traditions. Another of her projects, El Olvido, starts in a bar in Guatemala. She says it's a bar that could be anywhere i

HOW CAN A FORM BE A HOLDER FOR INTENTIONS AND IDEAS is episode eighteen, following a conversation with multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and writer Crystal Z Campbell. While form is one of the meaning-making elements in art, it can be often overlooked. Crystal Z Campbell, who furthermore refers to attention as a form of care, shaped formal relevance from a question: how can a form be a holder, a vessel, for intentions and ideas? In Crystal's work, which combines the specifics of historical events with the abstraction of artistic gestures and the serendipity of processes, form can be felt in many ways. Crystal's films are temporary places to enter and engage in a sensory relationship with the stories they make present. The witnessing relationship is also central to Crystal Z Campbell's work. Looking is not only a biological process, but also a historical one. They wonder in a public conversation: “How do we look at things we can't see?” Following Crystal's words, "looking should not be easy". P

NOT KNOWING HOW A DEAD LANGUAGE SOUNDED—episode seventeen of the of The Tale and the Tongue series—follows a conversation with multi-media producer, writer, public speaker, educator, audio remixer, DJ, and owner of the Comatonse Recordings record label Terre Thaemlitz, and Sonia Fernández Pan, the host of this podcast series. The title of this podcast is inspired by a comment that appeared during the meeting with Terre Thaemlitz. She proposed a future in which aspects of the past are unknown as a critical gesture towards the ongoing and growing demand for visibility and preservation of mainstream, but not only, archival systems. Like any other medium, archives and documents produce ideology and are produced by ideology. Following more of Terre Thaemlitz’s comments, this podcast conversation is also not excluded from how criticism of the system is part of the system. Because, as he says, analysis and artistic work is often confused with political organisation. The relational dynamics of gender also emerged in

Staying with the wonder, is the sixteenth episode of the Tale and the Tongue series. As with Luz Broto, this episode is created through an audio recording exchange by artist Daniela Medina Poch and Sonia Fernández Pan, the host of the Tale and the Tongue podcast series. Dear Daniela, I have been collecting bottle caps these days to keep bringing the sea closer to this marshy city. Yesterday I brought back several from a long journey to reach a lake, as well as some strange, very hard mushrooms growing on the trunks of some trees. Curiosity makes us eavesdrop and intrusive, diverts us from the straight and narrow, makes us perceive the extraordinary within the ordinary, even makes us change our minds. Do you think curiosity is a crossing point between seeking and finding? I feel it is an indispensable attitude to stay with the wonder, an idea of yours that is much more than an idea. It is perhaps a way of being in the world, an unstable position that makes and unmakes given realities. Someone told me that

STORIES OF FRIENDSHIP is the fifteenth episode that emerged from a conversation with the podcast host Sonia Fernández Pan and the constellating artist-duo and friends Tara Njála Ingvarsdóttir and Silfrun Una Guðlaugsdóttir. They first met on their way to LungA School in Seyðisfjörður, Island, where they were invited to lead two workshops. Seeing Tara and Silla being dressed alike, giving two different characters to the same piece of clothing, gave a glimpse to something that is very present in their work as artists: the way in which everyday life and art can become friends. For this podcast episode Sonia Fernández Pan proposed a little play to them: to tell her separately about a memory of their friendship to add to this podcast together. Tara would tell the story of the little bugs, and Silla would return to Athens with Tara, sharing past situations and present emotions that make friendship a living home. Art is for both, Silla and Tara, a space where it is possible to be many other things at the same time.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU ARE CREATING SPACE FOR is the fourteenth episode of the Tale and the Tongue series and arises from a conversation with Teesa Bahana, the director of 32° East, an independent non-profit organisation focused on supporting, creating, and exploring contemporary art in Uganda, and the podcast host Sonia Fernández Pan. Music would appear at the beginning of their conversation, sharing together impressions of music's sensory ability to touch our emotions by bodily listening. The sensory dimension is something that music shares with artistic practices. However, there is a tendency to privilege its conceptual dimension, to locate art in the mind and not in the entire body. Being inspired by talking to other people is a kind of gift we receive, often without looking for it. In friendly conversations, ideas often come up that help us to shape or follow directions. They are part of a network that includes serendipities, spontaneity, and the pleasure in encountering each other. To borrow Teesa's

“To Move a Conversation,” is the thirteenth episode of the Tale and the Tongue series. It is a very special one — created through an audio recording exchange over months by artist Luz Broto and Sonia Fernández Pan, the host of the Tale and the Tongue podcast series. “Dear Luz, I am writing to you from my room in Berlin, where the first prominent sun of the year amuses itself by appearing and disappearing. A window that opens becomes a door. A door for a breath of fresh air and an internal change of scenery, as in my case. I kept listening to you, this time with the whole conversation in my ears, feeling two sources of light: that of sun and yours. I find it very telling that your name in Spanish means light. Barcelona’s nights have always been bright for me. And there are places where darkness goes beyond night, reaching into long summer days. As I also told you, snow and ice teach you that walking in a straight line can be very dangerous. You can be very clear about a direction to follow, but not about its p

Names, the seventh episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by ugandan artist, storyteller, writer and performer Acaye Kerunen. Acaye Kerunen graduated with a BSc in Mass Communication from the Islamic University in Uganda, Mbale. Her installation works—featuring hand stitching, appending, knotting, and weaving—are often made with local craftswomen, querying the line between fine art and craft, and centering methodologies of performance, collaboration, social work, and environmental consciousness. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. The podcas

Systems, the sixth episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by Kara Springer, an artist of Jamaican and Bajan heritage, who was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, and raised in Southern Ontario, Canada. Her work is concerned with care and armature — the underlying structure that holds the flesh of a body in place. Working with photography, sculpture, and site-specific interventions, she surveys forms of structural support within urban infrastructure and systems of institutional and political power. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast s

Shapes, the fifth episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by artist and performer Astrit Ismaili, born in Kosovo and based in Amsterdam. Their artistic practice features bodies that consist of both imaginary and material realities, using alter egos, body extensions, and wearable music instruments to embody possibilities for becoming. In the act of singing, they explore the role of voice in pop culture and identity politics, asking what it means to make audible a body politic. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features ta

Kiss, the fourth episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk with Christian Campbell, a Trinidadian Bahamian poet, essayist, and cultural critic who studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and received his PhD from Duke University. He is the author of Running the Dusk (2010), which won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2015 Running the Dusk was translated into Spanish and published in Cuba as Correr el Crepúsculo. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Chris

Feathers, the third episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by Palestinian artist Jumana Emil Abboud. Her artistic practice constellates personal stories and collective mythologies, weaving folklore and contemporary tales to navigate themes of memory and dispossession. Employing drawing, video, performance, objects, and text, she surveys place and resilience amidst the topography of Palestine. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit

Inheritance, the second episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by Pakistani artist Bani Abidi. Bani Abidi studied painting and printmaking at the National College of Arts, in Lahore, and later attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work addresses, in part, forms of nationalism amid the Indian-Pakistani conflict and the violent legacy of partition. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit Ismaili, Acaye Kerunen, Tessa

I Eat Here, the first episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by Haitian artist Tessa Mars. In her painting and performance practice she proposes storytelling and image-making as transformative strategies for survival, resistance, and healing. Her work is centered around Tessalines, her hybrid alter ego based on the leader of the Haitian revolution, Jean-Jacques Dessalines; through her, Mars investigates gender, history, tradition, and narrative. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana

Holding on to Writing is the fourth episode of the Feminisms in the Caribbean series, which emerges from a conversation with haitian writer, poet and novelist Kettly Mars. Haiti is at the heart of her creation, being a pretext for her relationship with words, her fondness for storytelling and the exploration of the human soul. During her process of writing words often come before ideas. The writer's body becomes a medium for the words, broadening a visceral relationship with language. One of the extraordinary qualities of words is that they cannot always explain themselves: they are content, but they are also form. They are result, but also process. Writing becomes something that happens and not just something writers do. It is a social, intimate, and responsive encounter with language that allows realities to appear within other realities. Writing can be an ethical tool and a compass in moments of disorientation. Moreover, "holding on to writing", an expression of Kettly Mars during our conversation, can mak