Carlos Motta
“We Who Feel Differently”
wewhofeeldifferently.info
Launch Events May 19: Gallery USF, Bergen, 7 pm
May 20: Torpedo Books, Oslo, 7 pm
Ctrl+Z Publishing
ctrlz.no; arne [at] ctrlz.no
…People are not provoked by those who are different. What is more provoking is our insecurity: When you say, “I am so sorry but I am different.” That’s much more provoking than saying “I am different,” or “I have something to tell you, I can see something that you cannot see!”
With these words, Norwegian Trans activist Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad situates sexual difference as a unique opportunity rather than as a social condemnation. “Difference” is a way of being in the world, and as such it represents a prospect of individual and collective empowerment, social and political enrichment, and freedom. Freedom implies the sovereignty to govern oneself: Being human is being beyond parameters, being without sex or gender constraints.
Has this ideal been attained in the four decades of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer and Questioning politics?
“We Who Feel Differently” features Interviews (wewhofeeldifferently.info/interviews.php) with fifty queer academicians, activists, artists, radicals, researchers, and others in Colombia, Norway, South Korea and the United States about the histories and development of LGBTIQQ politics in these countries. The interviewees have been active participants in the cultural, legal, political, and social processes around sexual difference; they frame the debates and discuss the mainstream LGBT Movement’s agenda from queer perspectives. Interviewees include: Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, Douglas Crimp, Emily Roysdon and Edmund White (USA); Kim Friele, Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad and Åse Rothing (NO); CHOI Hyun-sook, MONG Choi and PARK Kiho (KOR); María Mercedes Gómez, Diana Navarro and Esteban Restrepo (CO).
The Book (wewhofeeldifferently.info/themes.php) (co-edited by Carlos Motta and Cristina Motta) presents five thematic threads drawn from the interviews and puts forth an assemblage of queer critiques of normative ways of thinking about sexual difference.
The Journal (wewhofeeldifferently.info/journal.php) is an online publication that presents in depth analyses of LGBTIQQ politics. The first issue, “Queerly Yours: Thoughts and Afterthoughts on Marriage Equality,” presents commissioned essays by activists and academicians: Bruno Bimbi (AR), Ryan Conrad & Jazmin Nair (USA), Shelly Eversley (USA), Kheven LaGrone (USA), Nick J. Mulé (CA), and Senthorun Raj (AU).
“We Who Feel Differently” attempts to reclaim a queer “We” that values difference over sameness, a “We” that resists assimilation, and a “We” that embraces difference as a critical opportunity to construct a socially just world.
Launch Events
Thursday, May 19, 2011, 7pm
Gallery USF, Bergen
Georgernes Verft 12; usf.no
Panel Discussion with: Deniz Akin (Gender Researcher), Tone Hellesund (Researcher, Uni Rokkan Centre), Carlos Motta, Annika Rodriguez (Intl. Advisor for The Norwegian LGBT Association) and Arne Skaug Olsen (Curator).
Friday, May 20, 2011, 7pm
Torpedo Books, Oslo
Trelastgata 3; torpedobok.no
Panel Discussion with: Heidi Eng (Professor, Diakonhjemmet University College), Carlos Motta, Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad (Trans Activist) and Arne Skaug Olsen (Curator).
Carlos Motta (b. Bogotá, Colombia, 1978) is an artist whose work has been presented in venues such as Guggenheim Museum, New York; MoMA/PS1, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá; Museu Serralves, Porto; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; and “X Biennale de Lyon.” Motta is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and a member of the faculty at Parsons The New School of Design and the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.
Ctrl+Z Publishing is non-commercial and project based; its publications are made by artists, artists groups and curators. Ctrl+Z is part of the self-organized field, its profile is transient and its catalogue is not defined by one aesthetic, political or institutional program. Our goal is to investigate structural conditions for art production, art mediation and art discourse in the form of printed matter. ctrlz.no
