Activist Choreographies of Care: perfocraZe International Artist Residency

About

Activist Choreographies of Care: perfocraZe International Artist Residency connects Kumasi and Berlin, intertwining queer stories told in, about, and from those locations. Archival and newly produced artistic works, previous performances and new live actions are linked by an event program, bringing together the communal spirit of the residency with the notion of a gathering space provided by an exhibition display and performance set-up.

The project opens a satellite space of the perfocraZe International Artist Residency [pIAR] from Kumasi, Ghana, in Berlin. pIAR is a self-organized safer space for people of the LGBTQIA+ community in Ghana, which is currently under acute threat from a law disguised as “Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights And Ghanaian Family Values Bill”. The law, which was passed by Parliament in February 2024 criminalizes the identification as LGBTQIA+ and the promotion of LGBTQIA+ rights, amongst many other activities. While the law has not been signed by the previous parliament, hence suspending its implementation, the new parliament allegedly plans to include the violent and discriminatory content of the law in school curricula.

Through installation, film, textiles, poetry and performance, the artists engage with the search for queer ancestries, dismantling colonial histories inscribed in bodies and spaces, to build different worlds that hold space for connection, daily resistance, and transformation. Kumasi and Berlin-based artists explore circular narrations and speculative queer futures. Looking at pre-colonial histories, the project gathers artists whose work challenges Western notions of binary genders and queerness, to raise international solidarity and build resilience networks.