MRPJ - Archive Issues

Movement Research announces Issue 52/53 of its print publication, the Movement Research Performance Journal. For this issue, Sovereign Movements: Native Dance and Performance, guest editor, choreographer Rosy Simas invited writer, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, to work with her. Together they assembled contributors from Native and Indigenous communities to reflect upon their practices, the historical conditions out of which they operate as well as movement, performance, and choreography as a socio-political project. Just as it is important for physical institutions to acknowledge that they sit upon occupied land of Native and Indigenous people, so too must institutions of history, practice, and epistemology acknowledge their occupation of knowledge and memory.

Throughout this issue, dance and movement is posited as a powerful strategy against settler-colonial mindsets and as an effective tool against erasure of Native and Indigenous cultural traditions. These pages discuss the importance of Native sovereignty and analyze various histories of resistance to settler-colonialism. Artists in the issue propose alternative artistic models to probe the roles of art and artists in society towards a more expansive constellation that fundamentally critiques the Western reward system in culture as well as the often celebrated cult of authorship.

Under the direction of four contributing editors—Amalle Dublon, Kay Gabriel, Keioui Keijaun Thomas, and Anh Vo— we’ve assembled a new body of work by mostly trans and queer artists reflecting on the keyword “gender” and its relation to contemporary performance. Their work moves across multiple genres of writing, from analytic essays to poetry to performance scripts. 

“Read My Lips” is a phrase that will be familiar to longtime readers of the Movement Research Performance Journal—so familiar that the mere reference will bring to mind an image posted by the artist collective GANG, an image that lies at the heart of one of the journal’s most spectacular moments. Issue #3, with its focus “Gender Performance,” was published in 1991 amid that era’s Culture Wars, receiving almost immediately negative reception from government officials (the NEA threatened to withdraw funding from Movement Research) and many members of the dance community (who considered Issue #3 to be deliberately provoking the so-called “war,” intentionally taking a political position that some worried might comprise future funding of the field). In the thirty-three years since its publication, Issue #3 has developed a patina familiar to many artist-activist histories that are looked upon with romance and nostalgia, often by those for whom that history is only a fantasy (rather than a lived experience). 

The platform, free speech and contempt

4SPIKE & howawfulallanis, Alex Less, Alice Royer, Alligataure, Amelie Clicquot, Anjol, Arañada, Axel Fievet , Axelle Bourguignon, Baron & Tosma, Charlie Cooper, Charlotte Sallan Gémard, Délora Abbal, Elliott Sanchez, Erimoczi, femo, Fleur Douglas, Gaia Bergelin & Inès Camrla, Justine Bouvet, Kara, Kiara Patry, Lilian Magardeau & Elisa Grondin, Loreleï, Lucile Moreau, Manon Souza, Marie Martin Design, Mira, Migraine, Nathan Peron, Nathanael Brelin, Nomaison, Ema Tomas, Othilie Jourde Ledoux, Piquico , Rémy Bellariva, Séraphin Degroote Ferrera et Arthur Diguet, Syan Fischer, Tanikawa Sari, Vanessa Kintzel, Virginie Contier, Viviane Le Borgne, Zoé Vincent. 

"Cet ouvrage est un magazine participatif regroupant les oeuvres de 48 artistes autour d'un thème commun, l'artefact. Vertige du passé ou projection contemporaine, l'artefact nous parle. Il raconte les cultures, en façonne le souvenir et promet ainsi un voyage à travers les créations humaines. Ce sont ces témoignages tangibles de l'existence que nous souhaitons vous offrir grâce aux interprétations captivantes de l'artefact. Chaque page de ce nouveau numéro est une invitation à plonger dans les méandres de l'histoire ou de la fiction, à explorer les différentes strates de l'humanité à travers le primes de ses réalisations matérielles."

Alexandre Daram, Alice Royer, Audrey Poujoula, Audrey Ramos, Basile, Bordel j’ai glissé, Cel, Charlie Udave, Collectif IPN, Elliott Sanchez, Emilia Pesty, Marie Derrien, Fils Kurylak, Flora Rushiti, Hélène Berlemon, Inès Day, Julie Plantefeve, Kaspar kaspar.wtf, Kawani DS, Kiara Patry, Laura Zanti, Lauriane Rolo, Le Bayou Club Graphique, Lea Canovas, Lili Archer, Lily Terrible, Lisa Dehove, Lola Marty, Louis Kervel, Lutine Cabarrou, Maeva Iorio, Maké, Martin Régnier, Maxoy, Meuneurol, Nathanael Brelin, Nurzen & Jack Montaly, Oscar, Pierre Touron, Ptit Lylou, Rachel Roland, Rose Meybeck, Sarah Josserand, Theo Grandchamp. 

How to Sleep Faster 2 is the second of our biannually published journals that form the backbone of Arcadia Missa’ critical collaborative discourse on participation, post-digital visual-production and institutional subjectivity.This issue explores moments of collapse, shift and potential in a cultural moment framed by economic, political and societal disturbance.

Arcadia Missa Publication; eds Rozsa Farkas, Tom Clark et al.

What are our politics of refusal? Sleep? Catatonia? Hedonism? Transgression even? #hustle? 

[Can refusal can be performed as resistance and not operate as preemptively fucked. . .]

Arcadia Missa Publications; Rózsa Farkas, Holly Childs, Leila Kozma, Tom Clark (eds)

Exhibitions by Edgar Calel and Forensic Architecture, conversations with Lisette Lagnado and between Eyal Weizman, Agata Nguyen Chuong, Zoé Samudzi and Irmgard Emmelhainz, and short stories by Portia Subran and Rémy Ngamije.

Forensic Architecture presents ‘A Counter-Archive of the Ovaherero and Nama Genocide’, a powerful investigation into the early 20th-century genocide committed by German colonial powers in today’s Namibia. Drawing on years of archival research and spatial analysis, the exhibition traces the lasting impact of colonial violence in three parts: from the ideological roots of racialised imperialism, to the design of the concentration camp, to the ongoing environmental degradation and dispossession affecting Indigenous communities today.

Edgar Calel’s ‘Dreams and memories dazzle through the flickering of fireflies’ is an exploration of dreams, memory and everyday life within his multi-generational family home in Comalapa, Guatemala. Each morning, dreams are shared among family members, as a practical and poetical way to sense the energy of the day ahead. Concrete business plans and reminders to cook certain dishes emerge from these retellings: a ritual so entwined in the architecture of their every day, that, even when apart, they recount their visions through shared voice notes.

Pina is a printed, portable exhibition space. We function as a commissioning platform, collaborating with artists to create exhibitions existing solely within the pages of a magazine.