Breathing In Babylon Weekender
Breathing in Babylon was a proposition to address the vibrancy of sonic and visual cultures and the racial, political, and ecological turmoil that shape our societies, streets, and the wellbeing of our communities. To breathe within these supremacist structures, from a racialized position, was to intervene into its apparatus of violence and repression. It was to ring the alarm, be alive, and be remembered. With this program, we brought together sounds, art, performances, music, and conversations that attuned to our laughter, losses, love, regrets, memories, chaos, blackouts, and desire to catch our breath in these times of duress.
This four-day long program zoomed in on how alternative situations and praxis breathe life into street culture pasts, presents, and futures. By acknowledging the spatial and everyday colonial and capitalist wounds and secrets that make it difficult to catch our breath in Babylon, we carved out space for being together. This program centralized the way people use intimate stories and fabulation, humor, dance, silence, and songs, which emerge from (art), cultural, and sonic practices to address the politics of breathing and imagination in cities that don't care for marginalized people's imagination, dreams, and wellbeing. Whose oxygen is compromised? After all, we don't all breathe the same air, and breathing together rarely means breathing the same.Breathing in Babylon was developed in multiple conversations with Hala Namer, Bram Owusu, Vincent van Velsen.
- Date: 1-4 December 2022
- Location: Kanaal40
- Event type: Weekender