Sophie Yukiko & ZOE , BODEN

Silvia Federici describes how, before the era of the witch hunts, vast parts of Europe fostered a different understanding of land, community, ancestry, property, and soil. Communal structures and shared soil characterised social structures. Soil was not regarded as a purely private resource but as a communal responsibility, as a community’s shared good. The European witch hunts can be interpreted as a starting signal for an era of violence, expansion, and displacement. BODEN works on these historic links and tackles the construction of a German nation, of concomitant national pride as well as of a segregated, non-German, non-white unit whose existence on German soil is being denied.

From a Black German perspective, artists Sophie Yukiko and ZOE approach these themes as they deal with the witch as an archetype through voguing – a dance style of the queer ballroom subculture.

Sophie Yukiko is German American artist in the areas of film and theatre. In her works, she takes on the concept of the ritual which she negotiates through dance and text. During her career as a commercial dancer, she became a part of the ballroom scene and subsequently dedicated herself to contexts of political art.

ZOE is an interdisciplinary performance artist and curator from Düsseldorf. In her works, she reflects on rehabilitation, transformation and the (re-)appropriation of body and space as well as on the relation between power and marginalisation. Her art, to her, is a language of resistance that scrutinises narratives, fills blank spaces and expands narratives to focus on the perspectives, the visibility, and the advocacy of structurally discriminated lived realities and communities. ZOE is part of the first German ballroom generation and counts as one of the leading figures for this culture in the German-speaking countries.

In german und and english. With subtitles in german and english.

Duration: 60 mins.