Unearthing: otherwise

Artist Talk & Workshop

Join us for Unearthing: otherwise, the closing public program of our current exhibition Positions: Unearthing.

Food will be provided during the event

During this evening, artists Ben Yau and Priyageetha Dia will give an artist talk, diving into their artistic practices and methodologies. Exploring the notion of toxicity, both artists will challenge dominant understandings of engineered environments shaped by colonial powers–be it from the soil and the land to the archives.

The second part of the evening will be hosted by artist, filmmaker, writer, and educator Aram Lee and centers the question: How might a plot, as land and narrative, unsettle plots shaped by military occupation, empire, plantation logics, and development? The workshop Can a plot demilitarize a plot? invites us to engage with militarized landscapes and the more-than-human beings the land holds, including those long othered, trampled, or displaced. It opens questions around how sites have been plotted through dominant regimes that continue to structure the present.

Working with the autobiography of the land as a method, the workshop explores how land may narrate itself as a polyphonic subject across multiple temporalities and scales, in resonance with approaches from time-based media. Participants collectively experiment with re-plotting through micro–macro mapping and speculative writing. Here, plot becomes a site where fragmented and externalised beings may recompose into constellations, and where plot emerges as land and storyline, continuously transforming.

Unearthing, uprooting is organized as part of the public program of Positions: Unearthing, on view until May 3rd in Stroom Den Haag. For any other inquiries, you can reach out to Leana Boven at lboven@stroom.nl.