Second Research Workshop: "Other Epistemologies? Troubling Knowledge in Research and Art"

Knowledge is never innocent. At the heart of the current planetary crisis lays an order of viewing, thinking, and knowing the world as to consume. As this entanglement becomes more and more apparent today, an urge for ‘other epistemologies’ can be observed, especially in the humanities and the arts: ways of engaging with humans, animals, more-than-humans and environments that do not fall into forms of mere appropriation or even violence. With good reason, the historic and ongoing modes of objectifying living beings and things for exploitation are being problematized. This concerns for example the colonial heritage of archives or the different forms of extractivism, but also the very mode of ‘scopic knowledge’. Therefore, the universality of Western – that means Eurocentric and US-American – knowledge is being criticized and former ‘peripheric’ epistemes/epistemologies are being highlighted – for example indigenous knowledge.
The two-day research workshop takes up these abovementioned discussions and asks: How does aiming for non-western epistemologies change the assumption of center and periphery? Can it go beyond existing power structures? Or is it just another way of extraction, appropriation, and silencing? Where are common grounds between different epistemologies, for example considering questions of human rights?
More precisely regarding the arts: How do theatre, dance, performance, films etc. engage with different ways of knowing and experiencing in the world? For example, which kinds of explorations of the sonic or the tactile are being undertaken, but also of ‘other modes’ of seeing? How can the different arts challenge dominant forms of knowledge? To what extent do they not only change, but also create new epistemologies through their aesthetic or artistic/performative practices?

The first workshop day will take place at the choreographic center PACT Zollverein in Essen and includes the new performance “Borda” by Brazilian artist Lia Rodrigues in the evening, followed by an artist talk. The following day, the workshop will continue at BlueSquare, Ruhr-University Bochum.

Workshop with Dr. Cecilia Gil Mariño (Buenos Aires/Köln), Dr. Melibea Obono (Malabo/Madrid/Essen), Jr.-Prof. Dr. Mariana Simoni (Berlin), Prof. Dr. meLê Yamomo (Amsterdam) as well as Prof. Dr. Jörn Etzold (Bochum) and Prof. Dr. Henriette Gunkel (Bochum), in collaboration with PACT Zollverein.

Venue: PACT Zollverein Essen on 3rd of June & Ruhr-University Bochum, BlueSquare (Kortumstr. 90, 44787 Bochum), 2nd floor, on 4th of June

Beginning: 3rd of June, 3.30pm

End: 4th of June, 6pm

Organization: Sandra Biberstein, Katharina Frölich, Leon Gabriel, Emma Khadija Herrmann, Balindile ka Ngcobo, Felipe dos Santos Boquimpani

The workshop is open to the public. Interested guests are more than welcome, but kindly asked to register: dramaturgies-afterlife[at]rub.de

Quelle: https://dramaturgies-afterlife.de/event/second-research-workshop-other-epistemologies-troubling-knowledge-in-research-and-art-3rd-and-4th-of-june-2025/