Read about

Feminist

perspectives

Read about

Decolonial critique

and self–empowerment

“It is not given a priori, but is the result of historical and cultural factors embedded in relations of privilege and power.”

Despite this, gender relations are inscribed in gendered bodies in the form of power relations. Gendered binaries produce hierarchies in which the male or masculine is constructed as the norm — in opposition to the female or feminine as the ‘other’. These assertions are further perpetuated by representations in language, science, and art. Western cultural production has a long tradition of representing gender difference and thereby investing power in the masculine. Since these representations have contributed to the consolidation of gendered power relations, cultural production has been dominated by those constituted as powerful in this hierarchy.

“The history of feminist movements is shaped by Western European and Northern American white activists and theorists from the middle classes who drew attention to women’s struggles and general conditions in a system dominated by white men.”

The history of feminist movements is shaped by Western European and Northern American white activists and theorists from the middle classes who drew attention to women’s struggles and general conditions in a system dominated by white men. In keeping with the plurality of feminist concerns, other theories and analyses addressing specific needs have developed alongside this. The writer Alice Walker, for instance, coined the term womanism in response to the racism Black women were facing in white American feminist movements. The incorporation of Marxist thought and theory led to a feminist analysis of the intersection of gender oppression, patriarchy, and capitalism, which developed into materialist feminism and socialist feminism. Social feminists regard economic dependence as responsible for women’s oppression in a capitalist patriarchal society. Further consideration of gender relations, desire and sexuality developed into queer theory. Queer theorists deconstructed furthermore the normative notions of sex, gender, and desire, which are based upon heteronormativity. All these feminist approaches regard the end of the sexist oppression of women to be a necessary part of a larger quest for social, economic and political justice.

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“As a political fact, colonialism characterises a specific form of rule. It was established by an expansionist culture through the seizure of foreign territories and the total subjugation of the peoples living there by means of systematic violence, oppression, enslavement, expulsion and murder.”

The historical period after the age of colonialism is termed postcolonial. However, not only the existence of colonial structures and practices in both the former colonies and the territorial area of the colonial powers, but also adverse circumstances and dependencies created by globalization and the spread of the neoliberal market economy in the former colonies, provide clues for the diagnosis of neocolonial realities in the present. The intellectual currents that have tackled colonialism and its consequences since the mid–twentieth century are summarized under the term postcolonialism. Their fields of investigation yield insights that have relevance for various areas in the present. Among other topics, they draw attention to the relationship between local cultures and global forces; the multidirectional flow of global exchange; the transcultural nature of global culture; the connection between imperialism, globalization and neoliberal economy, and its role in the persistence of asymmetrical cultural relations; the colonial treatment of native flora and fauna and its parallels to colonized subjects and societies; the concept of geopolitical and cultural boundaries and the existence of peripheral areas; the neocolonial subject and hybrid identity; and the transnational, migrant and diasporic experience. Various forms of cultural production expand the field of postcolonial critique and self–empowerment and create links that productively advance the engagement with the diverse issues and problems in the field. From them emerge practices that not only sharpen critical analysis, but also seek to decolonise structures, institutions, habits, relations and knowledge formations that are imbued with the colonial legacy.

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Concept

MoC is a project focused on curatorial reflection and practice. Its work consists in the conception and realisation of exhibitions featuring critical contemporary art. The starting point is the evidence yielded by artistic practices that tackle social and cultural issues that demand to be discussed, practices that take a stand on asymmetries and discrepancies in the common reality, and that contribute with their work to the process of self–understanding in the contemporary world. MoC makes the connections between them tangible, pointedly conveys their critical and aesthetic clout, and thus creates spaces for the deployment of connecting values. MoC builds bridges in an endless realm of heterogeneous contiguities.

The recognition of the heterogeneity and plurality of contemporary society and the acknowledgement of the equal coexistence of differences in the search of a more just reality is the founding principle of MoC. It acknowledges the dialogicity, pluriperspectivity and multi–relatedness of society and culture, and creates a framework for the manifestation of their concerns through contemporary art practice. In line with these principles, MoC recognises the need for a multidimensional space for the articulation of heterogeneous concerns. Thus, MoC consciously operates in the field of tension between the politics of universal dignity and the politics of difference in order to contribute to society’s ongoing process of self–understanding, to raise awareness of different points of view, and with that to sharpen the general sense of justice. MoC is committed to the practice of recognition and equality.

In order to give expression to the diversity of concerns in contiguous areas of discussion, MoC has directed its practice to three fields of theory and action: [1] gender and gender identity, [2] feminist perspectives, and [3] decolonial critique and self–empowerment. These fields exist in an overall context of specific and general social concerns. Their choice results from the way MoC’s own subjective resources are positioned. Since the human substrate is the fundamental precondition for any kind of action, MoC builds its programme on the specificity of these foundations. However, the complexity and diversity of the chosen areas of discussion are so comprehensive that they allow different and sometimes contradictory perspectives on the one and the same topic. MoC is based on the assumption that judgments and convictions can be gained by taking into account other judgments and convictions. Only in this way can claims to validity based on justice uphold their validity and soundness.

MoC always works together with a variety of other institutions. In this way, MoC guarantees the autonomy and focus of its vision, expands its radius of action, and creates cross–institutional connections.

Exhibition publications are an integral part of MoC’s work. They meet the need for theoretical reflection and contribute not only to intellectual discussion and discourse formation, but also to raising public awareness.

Read about

Feminist

perspectives

Read about

Decolonial critique

and self–empowerment

In its work, MoC ties in with the diverse discourses that question and seek to dissolve gendered power relations. For MoC, this examination begins with the concept of gender, which as a concept of difference distinguishes the socially constructed aspects of gender from the biological ones — a distinction that subscribes to the assumption of the binary of nature–culture. Biological sex turns out to be just as socially constructed as gender, since it is an epistemological attribution. It is not given a priori, but is the result of historical and cultural factors embedded in relations of privilege and power. MoC distances itself from the purely biologistic interpretation of gender and refers in its theoretical positioning to Judith Butler and her concept of the performativity of gender. According to that concept, the practice of expressing gender produces it, while at the same time obscuring the fact that a gender does not exist at its core: “Gender identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are supposedly its results.” (Butler, Gender Trouble, 1990). Gender identity is thus a process and not a fixed outcome. It is not fixed, but is in a state of being and becoming. Gender(identities) are fluid.

“It is not given a priori, but is the result of historical and cultural factors embedded in relations of privilege and power.”

Despite this, gender relations are inscribed in gendered bodies in the form of power relations. Gendered binaries produce hierarchies in which the male or masculine is constructed as the norm — in opposition to the female or feminine as the ‘other’. These assertions are further perpetuated by representations in language, science, and art. Western cultural production has a long tradition of representing gender difference and thereby investing power in the masculine. Since these representations have contributed to the consolidation of gendered power relations, cultural production has been dominated by those constituted as powerful in this hierarchy.

The political project of feminism requires the female subject, which turns out to be highly diverse. Following this principle, MoC embraces the heterogeneity of feminist perspectives because it is the fundamental condition of all feminist theory and practice. The oppression white middle–class women face differs from the oppression faced by Black middle–class women or middle–class Women of Color or working–class women. The oppression heterosexual women face differs from that which homo– or bisexual women face. The oppression cis–women face differs from the oppression transwomen or non–binary people face. The oppression elderly women face differs from that of women living in precarity. Kimberlé Crenshaw, a Black American lawyer, introduced the term intersectionality, which describes the intersection of different forms of oppression such as gender, class, race, and sexuality. Intersections work together to produce injustice in the plural experience of being a woman. Such differences within the female subject are mirrored in the heterogeneity of feminist approaches.

“The history of feminist movements is shaped by Western European and Northern American white activists and theorists from the middle classes who drew attention to women’s struggles and general conditions in a system dominated by white men.”

The history of feminist movements is shaped by Western European and Northern American white activists and theorists from the middle classes who drew attention to women’s struggles and general conditions in a system dominated by white men. In keeping with the plurality of feminist concerns, other theories and analyses addressing specific needs have developed alongside this. The writer Alice Walker, for instance, coined the term womanism in response to the racism Black women were facing in white American feminist movements. The incorporation of Marxist thought and theory led to a feminist analysis of the intersection of gender oppression, patriarchy, and capitalism, which developed into materialist feminism and socialist feminism. Social feminists regard economic dependence as responsible for women’s oppression in a capitalist patriarchal society. Further consideration of gender relations, desire and sexuality developed into queer theory. Queer theorists deconstructed furthermore the normative notions of sex, gender, and desire, which are based upon heteronormativity. All these feminist approaches regard the end of the sexist oppression of women to be a necessary part of a larger quest for social, economic and political justice.

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MoC understands every decolonial effort as a step in the project of realising a more just world order and thus as an ethical responsibility. The importance of this concern lies in the dimensions of what colonialism brought to the world. As a political fact, colonialism characterises a specific form of rule. It was established by an expansionist culture through the seizure of foreign territories and the total subjugation of the peoples living there by means of systematic violence, oppression, enslavement, expulsion and murder. As a historical phenomenon, colonialism marks a period in the history of mankind. It was carried out by European colonial powers between the fifteenth century and the founding of the UN after the end of the World War II. While colonies were de facto founded for the economic, military and power–political benefit of the expanding colonial powers, they were justified with the ‘humanistic’ idea of wanting to ‘civilize’ the peoples and cultures designated as ‘primitive’, ‘savage’ and ‘barbarian’. This idea is based on the fiction of the racial and civilizational superiority of the colonizing cultures.

“As a political fact, colonialism characterises a specific form of rule. It was established by an expansionist culture through the seizure of foreign territories and the total subjugation of the peoples living there by means of systematic violence, oppression, enslavement, expulsion and murder.”

The historical period after the age of colonialism is termed postcolonial. However, not only the existence of colonial structures and practices in both the former colonies and the territorial area of the colonial powers, but also adverse circumstances and dependencies created by globalization and the spread of the neoliberal market economy in the former colonies, provide clues for the diagnosis of neocolonial realities in the present. The intellectual currents that have tackled colonialism and its consequences since the mid–twentieth century are summarized under the term postcolonialism. Their fields of investigation yield insights that have relevance for various areas in the present. Among other topics, they draw attention to the relationship between local cultures and global forces; the multidirectional flow of global exchange; the transcultural nature of global culture; the connection between imperialism, globalization and neoliberal economy, and its role in the persistence of asymmetrical cultural relations; the colonial treatment of native flora and fauna and its parallels to colonized subjects and societies; the concept of geopolitical and cultural boundaries and the existence of peripheral areas; the neocolonial subject and hybrid identity; and the transnational, migrant and diasporic experience. Various forms of cultural production expand the field of postcolonial critique and self–empowerment and create links that productively advance the engagement with the diverse issues and problems in the field. From them emerge practices that not only sharpen critical analysis, but also seek to decolonise structures, institutions, habits, relations and knowledge formations that are imbued with the colonial legacy.

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