Faith, myth and dream. Complex and illogical

Second block of the Gear With Petals studies programme in which we will delve into ways of being, doing and saying with complex, illogical and ecstatic languages. All of them are part of psychic, symbolic and political mechanisms that produce new spaces for enunciation. An enunciation that incorporates forms of association restricted by established logics, and that confronts the inherent elusiveness of language to address that which is still inexpressible but is desired and needed from queer positions.

In this block, we will look for intense and charged languages that help to go beyond literalism when it becomes insufficient. We will analyze artistic and poetic works whose languages – traversed by myth, dream, faith or the unreal – resort to allegory, metaphor or metonymy as excessive strategies, akin to profanation or infatuation, and marked by the libidinal. Certain elements and objects deviate from their “natural” function and use to become complicated, replicated and ornamented. Not in a gratuitous way, or following merely aesthetic purposes, but making possible a resistance to reductionism and assimilation into the usual logics.

We will approach the political dimension of faith, certain reworkings of the idea of sanctity or mysticism through the work of authors such as Ashon T. Crowley, Fanny Howe, Georges Bataille, Nisha Ramayya or Jean Genet. Narcissus and its connection with the queer suffering imaginary will serve us to approach contemporary revisions of mythology -jayy dodd or Julia Kristeva- that act as a vehicle to propose non-normative temporalities, representations and fertilities expressed through intense languages that establish a dialogue with these myths. Finally, we will also talk about psychoanalysis, Surrealism and dreams. We will approach the social and not merely escapist dimension of the dream through Beckett Warzer or Lyn Hejinian. We will review the relevance and actuality of certain features belonging to the surrealist movement; especially the political dimensions of Afrosurrealism, driven by metaphors that move from appearance to potentiality, by the mystical and by the need for specific languages that confront consensual rationality.

This block is composed of two activities:

Talk
Date: March 24th
Time: 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Video of the session

Reading group
Participation under previous selection
Date: March 31th
Time: 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Capacity limited to 12 participants
To register it is necessary to fill in this form.

*Days before the session we will contact the selected persons and provide them with the texts.

Gear With Petals is conducted by Beatriz Ortega Botas, Blanca Ulloa, Alberto Vallejo and Leticia Ybarra.

Blanca Ulloa is a doctoral candidate in Performance Studies at New York University.
Beatriz Ortega Botas is curator of Yaby and editor of _AH magazine.
Alberto Vallejo is curator of Yaby and editor of _AH magazine.
Leticia Ybarra is a poet and co-founder of the Juf project. She has worked at La Casa Encendida as head of the Literature and Thought department, as curator of the Gelatina festival or cycles such as Atravesar el bosque encantado.

For more information:
Carolina Jiménez
carolina[at]hangar.org