Promise No Promises! show

Promise No Promises!

Summary: Promise No Promises is a podcasts series produced by the Center for Gender and Equality, a research project of the Institute Art Gender Nature FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel, conceived as a think tank tasked to assess, develop, and propose new social languages and methods to understand the role of gender in the arts, culture, science, and technology, as well as in all knowledge areas that are interconnected with the field of culture today. The podcast series originates from a series of symposia initiated in October 2018 in Basel and moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer. Part of the Gender’s Center for Excellency, the symposia and the podcasts are the public side of this research project aimed to develop different teaching tools, materials and ideas to challenge the curricula, while creating a sphere where to meet, discuss, and foster a new imagination of what is still possible in our fields.

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  • Artist: Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW in Basel
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Podcasts:

 THE TALE AND THE TONGUE. Moving in Migrant Rhythms – Maya Saravia | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:25:20

MOVING IN MIGRANT RHYTHMS is episode nineteen, which follows a conversation with artist and loud thinker Maya Saravia and the podcast host Sonia Fernández Pan. In their conversation the migrant experience is very present. Maya has lived in different cities since she left Guatemala, including Madrid, Lisbon and Berlin. Even if we are the same person, our bodies do not move in the same way in all places and cultures. Part of the insights Maya and Sonia share have a lot to do with feeling and thinking with other rhythms. One of the music genres that Maya often talks about is raggaeton. The raggaeton rhythms are dangerously catchy. It is one of those music rhythms whose will is stronger than ours. In the statement of one of her projects, she refers to raggaeton as a syncretic event. It is a volcano erupting in the world, driven by the flows of capital, labour, many displacements and musical traditions. Another of her projects, El Olvido, starts in a bar in Guatemala. She says it's a bar that could be anywhere in the world. A place where the light-hearted life of bars mixes with the violence of the news. Violence always makes words fall short. Making things happen is usually the attitude of people who see art as a way, and not so much as a destination. It is not about the destination or following a course, but about how one thing leads to another; it is not only important to move, but to create conditions for movement. Perhaps that is the most magical thing about conversations, that they move us without intending to.

 THE TALE AND THE TONGUE. How can a form be a holder for intentions and ideas – Crystal Z Campbell | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:06:27

HOW CAN A FORM BE A HOLDER FOR INTENTIONS AND IDEAS is episode eighteen, following a conversation with multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and writer Crystal Z Campbell. While form is one of the meaning-making elements in art, it can be often overlooked. Crystal Z Campbell, who furthermore refers to attention as a form of care, shaped formal relevance from a question: how can a form be a holder, a vessel, for intentions and ideas? In Crystal's work, which combines the specifics of historical events with the abstraction of artistic gestures and the serendipity of processes, form can be felt in many ways. Crystal's films are temporary places to enter and engage in a sensory relationship with the stories they make present. The witnessing relationship is also central to Crystal Z Campbell's work. Looking is not only a biological process, but also a historical one. They wonder in a public conversation: “How do we look at things we can't see?” Following Crystal's words, "looking should not be easy". Precisely when things are easy, our attention remains strategically distracted elsewhere, looking without seeing what is in front of us. The conversation with Crystal Z Campbell took place and words in November 2023. They were in Saint Louis, Oklahoma and Sonia Fernández Pan, the host of this podcast series, was in Berlin. Another thing Crystal mentioned in their conversation: the situation of indirect witness towards so many materials, events, and situations, the acts of omission, the gaps in the narratives. There are still many gaps in the official narratives, but also in our professional stories.

 THE TALE AND THE TONGUE. Not knowing how dead language sounded – Terre Thaemlitz | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:22:31

NOT KNOWING HOW A DEAD LANGUAGE SOUNDED—episode seventeen of the of The Tale and the Tongue series—follows a conversation with multi-media producer, writer, public speaker, educator, audio remixer, DJ, and owner of the Comatonse Recordings record label Terre Thaemlitz, and Sonia Fernández Pan, the host of this podcast series.The title of this podcast is inspired by a comment that appeared during the meeting with Terre Thaemlitz. She proposed a future in which aspects of the past are unknown as a critical gesture towards the ongoing and growing demand for visibility and preservation of mainstream, but not only, archival systems. Like any other medium, archives and documents produce ideology and are produced by ideology. Following more of Terre Thaemlitz’s comments, this podcast conversation is also not excluded from how criticism of the system is part of the system. Because, as he says, analysis and artistic work is often confused with political organisation. The relational dynamics of gender also emerged in this conversation with Terre Thaemlitz. Like Brigitte Vasallo—author, activist and former guest of the Promise No Promises! podcast series, episode 27 The Monogamy of the System—he is very nuanced about the widespread belief that removing gender from language removes its impact on social realities. On the current situation of gender pronouns, Sonia Fernández Pan also shared with Terre Thaemlitz her thoughts on other uses for the pronoun “they.” Sometimes Sonia Fernández Pan perceives in this pronoun a chance to imply the plurality of the self: “they” in relation to the “I” and not so much to the “she” or “he.” We are often asked to speak in key words that make us less complex than we are. Identity as a comfort zone or final destination contradicts the identity discomfort of so many lives. Being different like others is not the same as being different from others.

 THE TALE AND THE TONGUE. Staying with the wonder – Daniela Medina Poch | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:10:53

Staying with the wonder, is the sixteenth episode of the Tale and the Tongue series. As with Luz Broto, this episode is created through an audio recording exchange by artist Daniela Medina Poch and Sonia Fernández Pan, the host of the Tale and the Tongue podcast series.  Dear Daniela, I have been collecting bottle caps these days to keep bringing the sea closer to this marshy city. Yesterday I brought back several from a long journey to reach a lake, as well as some strange, very hard mushrooms growing on the trunks of some trees. Curiosity makes us eavesdrop and intrusive, diverts us from the straight and narrow, makes us perceive the extraordinary within the ordinary, even makes us change our minds. Do you think curiosity is a crossing point between seeking and finding? I feel it is an indispensable attitude to stay with the wonder, an idea of yours that is much more than an idea. It is perhaps a way of being in the world, an unstable position that makes and unmakes given realities. Someone told me that curiosity was a type of youth. And I think that if you stay with the wonder, you age youthfully.In starting to write this letter, which is for you, but also for anyone who wants to listen to us through your voice, I was trying to recall things I said to you in my voice notes but not doing so keeps the secret. However, it is not the mystery of my stories that is important here, but the possibility of not telling something or of telling it half-heartedly. Not knowing everything stops being uncomfortable and becomes a way to stay with the wonder.I stop here, a bit suddenly. A summer storm has just started. Perhaps these drops bring to Berlin the waters of so many rivers that are important to you. See you in the future to share flavors, wishes and stories. In the meantime, enjoy the unknown very much.  Yours, Sonia

 THE TALE AND THE TONGUE. Stories of friendship – Tara and Silla | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:00:32

STORIES OF FRIENDSHIP is the fifteenth episode that emerged from a conversation with the podcast host Sonia Fernández Pan and the constellating artist-duo and friends Tara Njála Ingvarsdóttir and Silfrun Una Guðlaugsdóttir. They first met on their way to LungA School in Seyðisfjörður, Island, where they were invited to lead two workshops. Seeing Tara and Silla being dressed alike, giving two different characters to the same piece of clothing, gave a glimpse to something that is very present in their work as artists: the way in which everyday life and art can become friends. For this podcast episode Sonia Fernández Pan proposed a little play to them: to tell her separately about a memory of their friendship to add to this podcast together. Tara would tell the story of the little bugs, and Silla would return to Athens with Tara, sharing past situations and present emotions that make friendship a living home. Art is for both, Silla and Tara, a space where it is possible to be many other things at the same time. The artist becomes a shape shifter, a temporary identity. This way of doing things has enabled them to become waterproof gallerists, heads of a company providing apology support, emotional dinner party hosts, hairdressers for naughty hairstyles, talking pipes suppliers or bird-shaped instrument players. Not so long-ago Tara and Silla got married in blue, celebrating their friendship and their constellating life together. The wedding included a contract in which they signed a piece of advice that someone gave them: to put friendship first. Performance as an artistic device is a medium that not only allows them to invite many other media, but also lets them play with the framework as themselves. Stories of friendship are important and inspiring for many reasons, not least because they also make friends out of stories.

 THE TALE AND THE TONGUE. You never know what you are creating space for – Teesa Bahana | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 0:45:35

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU ARE CREATING SPACE FOR is the fourteenth episode of the Tale and the Tongue series and arises from a conversation with Teesa Bahana, the director of 32° East, an independent non-profit organisation focused on supporting, creating, and exploring contemporary art in Uganda, and the podcast host Sonia Fernández Pan.Music would appear at the beginning of their conversation, sharing together impressions of music's sensory ability to touch our emotions by bodily listening. The sensory dimension is something that music shares with artistic practices. However, there is a tendency to privilege its conceptual dimension, to locate art in the mind and not in the entire body. Being inspired by talking to other people is a kind of gift we receive, often without looking for it. In friendly conversations, ideas often come up that help us to shape or follow directions. They are part of a network that includes serendipities, spontaneity, and the pleasure in encountering each other. To borrow Teesa's words, the possibility of creating a community involves a common language and knowing how to relate to each other across differences. Another common term in the art context is «professional». This word refers to a way of doing or not doing, but it is also an ideological subject with different, sometimes contradictory, perspectives. As Teesa points out, the critique of the term must take into account who is professional by default and who is not, who can ignore prescribed conventions and who cannot. The title of this podcast, «You Never Know What You Are Creating Space For», is inspired by a comment from Teesa Bahana during the conversation that brings up unintentional yet essential situations when working: making space for the unexpected and paying attention to things that happen and we can sense without planning them.

 THE TALE AND THE TONGUE. To Move a Conversation – Luz Broto | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:14:47

“To Move a Conversation,” is the thirteenth episode of the Tale and the Tongue series. It is a very special one — created through an audio recording exchange over months by artist Luz Broto and Sonia Fernández Pan, the host of the Tale and the Tongue podcast series.“Dear Luz, I am writing to you from my room in Berlin, where the first prominent sun of the year amuses itself by appearing and disappearing. A window that opens becomes a door. A door for a breath of fresh air and an internal change of scenery, as in my case. I kept listening to you, this time with the whole conversation in my ears, feeling two sources of light: that of sun and yours. I find it very telling that your name in Spanish means light. Barcelona’s nights have always been bright for me. And there are places where darkness goes beyond night, reaching into long summer days. As I also told you, snow and ice teach you that walking in a straight line can be very dangerous. You can be very clear about a direction to follow, but not about its path. Something like that happens to me with this letter I am writing to you after our spoken letters.We gave it a name: “Moving a Conversation.” And we came up with a little method: to move around spaces that were related to your projects. You in Barcelona, me in Berlin. I think we found a way to go back to the past by walking into the future.Thank you very much my dear, for moving me around, for taking me to so many places elsewhere, for making space for me among your words.”

 SONGS TO SOUND WORLDS. 06 Systems – by Kara Springer | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 0:26:59

Systems, the sixth episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by Kara Springer, an artist of Jamaican and Bajan heritage, who was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, and raised in Southern Ontario, Canada. Her work is concerned with care and armature — the underlying structure that holds the flesh of a body in place. Working with photography, sculpture, and site-specific interventions, she surveys forms of structural support within urban infrastructure and systems of institutional and political power. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit Ismaili, Acaye Kerunen, Tessa Mars, and Kara Springer.

 SONGS TO SOUND WORLDS. 07 Names – by Acaye Kerunen | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 0:27:38

Names, the seventh episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by ugandan artist, storyteller, writer and performer Acaye Kerunen. Acaye Kerunen graduated with a BSc in Mass Communication from the Islamic University in Uganda, Mbale. Her installation works—featuring hand stitching, appending, knotting, and weaving—are often made with local craftswomen, querying the line between fine art and craft, and centering methodologies of performance, collaboration, social work, and environmental consciousness. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. The podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit Ismaili, Acaye Kerunen, Tessa Mars, and Kara Springer.

 SONGS TO SOUND WORLDS. 04 Kiss – by Christian Campbell | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 0:28:20

Kiss, the fourth episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk with Christian Campbell, a Trinidadian Bahamian poet, essayist, and cultural critic who studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and received his PhD from Duke University. He is the author of Running the Dusk (2010), which won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2015 Running the Dusk was translated into Spanish and published in Cuba as Correr el Crepúsculo.  The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit Ismaili, Acaye Kerunen, Tessa Mars, and Kara Springer.

 SONGS TO SOUND WORLDS. 05 Shapes – by Astrit Ismaili | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 0:40:26

Shapes, the fifth episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by artist and performer Astrit Ismaili, born in Kosovo and based in Amsterdam. Their artistic practice features bodies that consist of both imaginary and material realities, using alter egos, body extensions, and wearable music instruments to embody possibilities for becoming. In the act of singing, they explore the role of voice in pop culture and identity politics, asking what it means to make audible a body politic. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit Ismaili, Acaye Kerunen, Tessa Mars, and Kara Springer.

 SONGS TO SOUND WORLDS. 01 I Eat Here – by Tessa Mars | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 0:18:52

I Eat Here, the first episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by Haitian artist Tessa Mars. In her painting and performance practice she proposes storytelling and image-making as transformative strategies for survival, resistance, and healing. Her work is centered around Tessalines, her hybrid alter ego based on the leader of the Haitian revolution, Jean-Jacques Dessalines; through her, Mars investigates gender, history, tradition, and narrative. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit Ismaili, Acaye Kerunen, Tessa Mars, and Kara Springer.

 SONGS TO SOUND WORLDS. 02 Inheritance – by Bani Abidi | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 0:33:27

Inheritance, the second episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by Pakistani artist Bani Abidi. Bani Abidi studied painting and printmaking at the National College of Arts, in Lahore, and later attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work addresses, in part, forms of nationalism amid the Indian-Pakistani conflict and the violent legacy of partition. The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit Ismaili, Acaye Kerunen, Tessa Mars, and Kara Springer.

 SONGS TO SOUND WORLDS. 03 Feathers – by Jumana Emil Abboud | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 0:29:12

Feathers, the third episode of the series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them, is based on a talk by Palestinian artist Jumana Emil Abboud. Her artistic practice constellates personal stories and collective mythologies, weaving folklore and contemporary tales to navigate themes of memory and dispossession. Employing drawing, video, performance, objects, and text, she surveys place and resilience amidst the topography of Palestine.  The podcast series Songs to Sound Worlds Stories to Rewrite Them emerges from the autumn 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, supported by SüdKulturfonds. The symposium was devoted to artists and thinkers whose work addresses the importance of retelling and reinterpreting stories and myths that regard identity and gender with all their ecological and spectral entanglements intact. TThe podcast series features talks and performances by Jumana Emil Abboud, Bani Abidi, Christian Campbell, Astrit Ismaili, Acaye Kerunen, Tessa Mars, and Kara Springer.

 FEMINISMS IN THE CARIBBEAN. Holding on to Writing – Kettly Mars | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:07:06

Holding on to Writing is the fourth episode of the Feminisms in the Caribbean series, which emerges from a conversation with haitian writer, poet and novelist Kettly Mars. Haiti is at the heart of her creation, being a pretext for her relationship with words, her fondness for storytelling and the exploration of the human soul.During her process of writing words often come before ideas. The writer's body becomes a medium for the words, broadening a visceral relationship with language. One of the extraordinary qualities of words is that they cannot always explain themselves: they are content, but they are also form. They are result, but also process. Writing becomes something that happens and not just something writers do. It is a social, intimate, and responsive encounter with language that allows realities to appear within other realities. Writing can be an ethical tool and a compass in moments of disorientation. Moreover, "holding on to writing", an expression of Kettly Mars during our conversation, can make it a way of life.It was not until her thirties that Kettly Mars was able to devote herself fully to writing. Her previous work in administration brought her into contact with another kind of language very different from that of literature: the language of bureaucracy, which is also the language of institutional power. However, she was not so much influenced by this kind of language as by the people she met at the time. Kettly Mars, who has written extensively in French, also writes in Creole. While the two languages are part of her identity, her emotional relationship is not the same with each of them. This relationship also includes the socio-political context of Haiti over the years, during and after the Duvalier dictatorship. Different from history books, which are a collection of historical facts, names and events, novels and fiction add new meanings, add multiples senses and add everyday lives to official history.

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