[un]learning structures #6 | sustainability in transnational cooperation in the performing arts

In the entanglement of climate crisis and coloniality, the question of forms and approaches arises more than ever when it comes to inter- and transnational collaborations in the performing arts.

Asymmetrical power relations, characterized by an art market dominated by the global North, an unquestioned white Eurocentric canon, colonial readings and markings within the disciplines, make structural equality in collaboration difficult.

The demand to communicate at eye level in transnational collaborations can lead to shifting complex social and geopolitical processes to the responsibility of individuals.  

How can we deal with these challenges from a producer's perspective?

The artist & activist Juma Pariri from São Paulo and the producer & curator Epona Hamdan from Berlin discuss questions andchallenges of transnational producing and cooperating in the performing arts.

Juma Pariri is a nomad artivist based in Abya Yala that seeks to listen and learn from plant secrets. They move in the friction between the arts of the body, undisciplined pedagogy, and the Indigenous struggle for environmental justice. Among others, they activate the performance platform AGITPORN! – POR NO a la desigualdad, por la desculonización social!, to learn (and create) from indigenous ancestors about anti-monocultural processes around sexualities, foods, crops, "cannibalism", menstruation and rituals. Their current project is called (In)dig(e)nous perforMAGICAL ACTivations against the farce of colonial representation as an associate researcher working with the Hemispheric Encounters Partnership (York University/CAN).

Epona Hamdan works as a producer, curator and critical companion in the independent performing arts. Her practice focuses on questions of anti-colonial futurities, critical pedagogies, new forms of organizing and preserving ecologies.

In her work as a producer, Epona has gained extensive experience in international touring and transnational collaborations in recent years. She has worked for Rimini Protokoll,  Ballhaus Naunynstraße,  Akademie for Autodidakts and the Arab Film Festival, besides other artists. Epona studied Theatre Studies, History and Culture of the Middle East and English Philology at the Free University Berlin and completed the course Curation in Performing Arts at the Paris-Lodron-University in Salzburg. 

Epona was selected by the 12th Berlin Biennale as an emerging curator for the program It Speaks to Me in 2022 and for the Platform for intersectional feminist Leadership by Urban Apa in 2023.

European premiere of PE ATAJU JUMALI / HOT AIR (25` - Experimental - Abya Yala - Dir: United against colonization: many eyes, one heart - Recorded entirely with a cell phone camera - 2023)

Marina Pandelo Paiva is an activist, musician and teacher. She currently lives in Berlin but originally comes from São Paulo where she studied languages at USP. As an activist, she acquired her knowledge from grassroots movements defending different agendas, always on the left. She is a PT <> EN interpreter and works especially in the fields of arts and politics, translating lectures and debates. She also produces political and cultural events, constantly promoting the questioning of existing structures.

Sanni Est is a Brazilian and German singer, songwriter, actress, curator and transmedia artist. Growing up in Curado IV, a peripheral neighborhood in the metropolitan area of Recife, in Northeast Brazil, she has lived since 2007 in Neukölln, Berlin, Germany. Her work intertwines autobiography and etymological research, creating spaces for reflection and empowerment.

In 2021, she served as director and co-curator of the exhibition ENCANTADAS, which took place at the Schwules Museum (Berlin), with funding from the Berlin Senate. In a pioneering and unprecedented initiative in the German visual arts scene, the exhibition was composed of seven trans artists from the North and Northeast of Brazil, guests by Sanni to occupy Berlin territory, and a commissioned audiovisual work, also transcentred.

The events in the frame of [un]learning structures - curated and organized by nara virgens, epona hamdan & melmun bajarchuu - tackle questions of  how to produce in a way that is sensitive towards different forms of discriminiation and critical of power structures in the performing arts with a focus on accessibility from an anti-ableist perspective, racism through a structural lense, thinking about how sustainability intersects with these two themes – and how these approaches can be put into practice. more about the event series [un]learning structures

The workshop is aimed at protagonists in artistic production within the independent performing arts who want to reflect on and redesign or further develop existing production processes. With its practical focus, the workshop aims at the application of the presented contexts in existing production processes, which the participants shape or redesign in their individual work environment.