« S.W.E.A.T. » (Sex/uality. Work. Extraction. Art. Theatr/ics): with John Herman #30

John Herman is a Germany-based self-taught art-activist. He artistically explores themes of war and peace, visual sociology, and socio-political communication across a rich variety of media—from performances, to video installations, to photography—yet John Herman cryptically resists the title of “artist”. His practice is fed by his extreme experiences of war, when he was fighting as a volunteer soldier alongside global freedom movements in Africa and the Middle East. In the Global Music market, he has worked as an artist manager, tour manager and a curator for World Music concert series focused on the Middle East, where he lived for a decade. Since 2018, he has been working as finance director at the DIN A 13 DANCE COMPANY, a mixed- abled contemporary dance company in Cologne, Germany. www.john-herman-art.online

This months episode is conducted in English and German.

Diese Folge des Monats wird sowohl auf Englisch als auch auf Deutsch geführt.

John Herman ist ein autodidaktischer Kunstaktivist, der sich nicht ausschließlich als Künstler begreift, auch wenn er Aktionskunst performt, Videoinstallationen erschafft und fotografiert. Darüber hinaus war er als Manager für Künstler im Bereich der Globalen Musik sowie als Kurator von Weltmusik-Formaten aus dem Mittleren Osten tätig, wo er mehrere Jahre lebte. Seine Kunst ist geprägt durch seine extremen Kriegserfahrungen aus seiner Zeit als freiwilliger Soldat an der Seite verschiedener Befreiungsbewegungen, u. a. in Afrika und im Mittleren Osten. Kernthemen seiner Kunst sind sozial-politische Kommunikation, visuelle Soziologie sowie Fragen zu "Krieg und Frieden". John Herman lebt und arbeitet in Köln.

www.john-herman-art.online

We all sweat as we provide care, as we labour, as we perform our work, as we fuck, as we survive and as we sacrifice one choice for the other. How exactly do we define our work and how does that work entangle and circumscribe our sexual identities, our racialized bodies, our creative lives and the ways in which we provide care? How do we perform both tasks and identities within the framework of that which we consider work? These conversations are a means to speak between intersectionalities by anchoring through our (always, already, and ever pervasive) sexualized and racialized bodies, our working bodies, our artistic bodies and our performative bodies. I hope that they contribute to dialogues which normalize sex work as work, and all work as deserving of respect, healthy conditions, and a living wage.

You can find out more https://www.alfabus.us/s-w-e-a-t/

Mad Kate (they/them) is an electronic producer, sound designer, performance artist and writer who began working the Berlin performance and club scene in 2004, expanding their unique identity-queering, genderfcking and sexpositive performative work throughout music, theatre and film. Their explorations of borders between/within bodies, audibility, consent, proximity, and touch as political practice have brought them to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world.