Reading Group
Decolonising the Gaze
Connected within that Light: Reading/Theory Group Series with Kathy-Ann Tan
This reading group series is entitled Decolonising the Gaze. In this second of three sessions, we will collaboratively read and discuss texts by Hortense Spillers and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and continue our engagement with artistic works related to their writing.
Expanding on the previous sessions’ reading of Lorraine O'Grady’s “Olympia’s Maid”, we will delve into Hortense Spillers’ seminal essay, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe” (1987) as well as selected excerpts from Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ poetic homage to Spillers, Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity (2016). We will consider how contemporary artists have challenged and transformed the trope of the mammy figure, as made manifest in the practice of wet nursing that was forced upon enslaved Black women in the Southern states in the US in the Civil War era and beyond. We will also engage with the work of Berlin-based Gabonese visual and live artist, Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro, in particular her recent durational performance “I Go To Prepare A Place For You / Wet Nurse Service” (2021).
Texts
Hortense Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe”, 1987
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Spillers, Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity, 2016
The sessions will be led in English but discussion in German is welcomed. Texts will be circulated in advance after registration closes.
Encompassing topics such as intersectional feminism, the agency of bodies, colonialism and the nature of care, the reading/theory group Connected within that Light loosely complements the Gropius Bau’s exhibition programme in 2022. Sessions are facilitated by Berlin-based independent curator, writer and scholar Kathy-Ann Tan.
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