UNRELIABLE NARRATOR is a podcast which sits alongside the exhibition A FIRE IN MY BELLY at the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Berlin. Hosted by Lisa Long and Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, it features interviews, conversations and poetry readings with the various artists, writers, and interlocutors of A FIRE IN MY BELLY. The podcast extends upon the exhibition’s premise of how artists address the foundations and effects of systemic violence on bodies, and how these experiences are transformed into artistic gestures.
In the inaugural episode of Unbound, hosts Line Ajan and Lisa Long have an introductory conversation about the exhibition “Unbound: Performance as Rupture”, followed by an interview with performance scholar Peggy Phelan about the influential definition of performance delineated in her 1993 seminal book Unmarked. The Politics of Performance. Phelan sheds light on the ethical and political dimensions of performance, and how the documentation and reproduction of performative practices shifts their essence – themes that are also central to the exhibition. This illuminating conversation with Phelan is interspersed with excerpts from another conversation we had with artist peter campus, whose 1973 video Three Transitions is the first artwork encountered by visitors of the exhibition. We end with comments sent to us by journalist Marilena Borriello. Sonic excerpts from Pipilotti Rist’s 1988 video (Entlastungen) Pipi’s Fehler (1988), also on view in the show, resonate with the disruptive power of performance mentioned by Phelan.
Hosts and Editors: Line Ajan, Assistant Curator, and Lisa Long, Artistic Director Julia Stoschek Foundation
Direction and Editorial: Luise Pilz
Producer: Sören Hochberg, Parasomnia Podcast Production
Jingles and musical theme: Audio excerpts from works that are part of the exhibition, including mandla and Graham Clayton-Chance’s work as british as a watermelon (2021), Vaginal Davis’s video The White to Be Angry (1999), and Pipilotti Rist’s work (Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler (1988). These last two works are also part of the the Julia Stoschek Collection
Graphic Design: Bureau Borsche
2 Feb 2022
Episode Nine: Jesse Darling (IV)
This is the fourth and final episode of poetry readings attached to the exhibition A FIRE IN MY BELLY. We have had the pleasure of listening to the artist Jesse Darling read a few poems of their own choosing, in dialogue with the poetry already included in the exhibition. Here, their readings and this series conclude with The Silver Birch by Liz Berry, Revolutionary Letter 2 by Dianne di Prima, and two poems by David Wojnarowicz, whose unfinished film A Fire In My Belly (Film In Progress) and A Fire In My Belly (Excerpt) 1986-87, is from where our exhibition takes its title. The two poems of his that Jesse will read are Poem to Brian Sleeping, and History Keeps me Awake Some Nights.
We would like to take this moment to thank Jesse for reading to us all so beautifully, and for the spirited atmosphere in which these readings came together. Introduced by Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, curatorial assistant of A FIRE IN MY BELLY and the Julia Stoschek Collection.
2 Feb 2022
Episode Eight: Marion Scemama
Marion Scemama’s film “Self-Portrait in 23 Rounds: A Chapter in David Wojnarowicz’s Life 1989-1991” (2018) depicts the artist and activist David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992) speaking candidly about intimacy, desire, and the use of rage in his creative processes. Scemama—a close friend of Wojnarowicz’s—weaves an affecting portrait of a man who must reckon with his impending death in a society that refused to confront the AIDS epidemic. This film is based on a 4-hour interview conducted in May 1989 by cultural theorist Sylvère Lotringer (1938–2021)—founder of Semiotext(e)—a year after Wojnarowicz was diagnosed with HIV.
25 Jan 2022
Episode Seven: Jesse Darling (III)
Violence, rage, resistance, and release—these are the four corners of the exhibition A FIRE IN MY BELLY. This episode is the third of four poetry readings on UNRELIABLE NARRATOR where the artist Jesse Darling reads to us a few poems of their own choosing, in dialogue with the poetry already included in the exhibition. In this episode, they will be reading Song in my heart by Diane Seuss, Snow and Dirty Rain by Richard Siken, and won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton, which is reprinted at the end of the exhibition catalogue. Introduced by Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, curatorial assistant of A FIRE IN MY BELLY and the Julia Stoschek Collection.
15 Dec 2021
Episode Six: caner teker
In this episode of UNRELIABLE NARRATOR, the artist caner teker speaks about their performance KIRKPINAR which is part of A FIRE IN MY BELLY, and was co-presented with Berlin Atonal in late October this year at Kraftwerk. Here, caner speaks about the origins of the performance and its conception as a product of growing up as part of the Turkish diaspora in Germany, the influence of queer nightlife and spaces in their stance on performance documentation, and the notion of care, amongst other things. We also invited the curator Joel Mu onto this episode to speak with us. Joel has worked closely with caner—presenting their piece Forever Endless in 2018 at Kunsthaus KuLe as part of Joel's curatorial program, mi1glissé/groupsandindividuals. This episode is presented by Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, the curatorial assistant of A FIRE IN MY BELLY and JSC Berlin.
1 Nov 2021
Episode Five: Jesse Darling (II)
This episode marks the second of four poetry readings on UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. We invited the artist Jesse Darling to read poems of their own choosing, in dialogue with the poetry already included in A FIRE IN MY BELLY. In this episode, they will be reading For Saundra by Nikki Giovanni which is reprinted in the exhibition catalogue, Turnt by Juliana Spahr, and a stanza from Poems – 18th to 24th May 2020 by Verity Spott. Introduced by Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, curatorial assistant of A FIRE IN MY BELLY and the Julia Stoschek Collection.
13 Oct 2021
Episode Four: P. Staff
In this episode of UNRELIABLE NARRATOR, Lisa Long and Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung speak with the artist P. Staff, whose video work Weed Killer (2017) is on view in A FIRE IN MY BELLY at JSC Berlin. Here, P. sheds light on the “unruly kinship” subsisting between illness (in particular, that of cancer) and the trans experience, and how narratives of the body can be perverted or leave realms of signification. Lifting passages from Catherine Lord’s 2004 memoir The Summer of Her Baldness—which documents her experience with breast cancer and chemotherapy—and turning these into Weed Killer’s script, P. illuminates larger questions to do with the relationship between decaying bodies and hostile environments.
3 Aug 2021
Episode Three: Jesse Darling
This episode marks the first of four poetry readings on UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. We invited the artist Jesse Darling to read a few poems of their own choosing, in dialogue with the poetry already included A FIRE IN MY BELLY.
In this episode, they will be reading three poems: first, a fragment from Brendan Joyce’s “five from Unemployment Insurance”, then C.D. Wright’s “Flame” which is reprinted as a wall vinyl in the A FIRE IN MY BELLY exhibition space, and Franny Choi’s “The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On”. Introduced by Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, curatorial assistant of A FIRE IN MY BELLY and the Julia Stoschek Collection.
8 Jul 2021
Episode Two: Marianna Simnett
In this episode of UNRELIABLE NARRATOR, curator Lisa Long speaks with artist Marianna Simnett, whose installation Faint with Light (2016) is on loan and on view in A FIRE IN MY BELLY at JSC Berlin. In their conversation, they dive into the possible and impossible spaces of empathy afforded by the work, an experience Orit Gat has described as “stressful, painful, regretful, almost impossible to look at—and empathetic as anything can be.” Long and Simnett also discuss the importance of abstraction as a means of refusing representation, surrender as a politics of the everyday, and the moving image as a type of operating theater.
1 Jun 2021
Episode One: Sophia Al-Maria
This episode of UNRELIABLE NARRATOR features Lisa Long — curator of the Julia Stoschek Collection — in conversation with the artist Sophia Al-Maria, whose video work Beast Type Song (2019) is included in A FIRE IN MY BELLY. Here, Long and Al-Maria speak about the postcolonial resonances of Sycorax in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the potentials of overcoming speechlessness, and how the past can instruct a future that we cannot yet see.
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