On mere men and mermaids  – Reading by Katharina Brandl, curator and art historian based in Basel, exploring the link between colonialism, gender, and the symbolic construction of the oceanic space and its inhabitants. 

Texts by Carolyn Merchant, Teresia Teaiwa, Sylvia Wynter, and Eva Hayward.

Just as feminized depictions of nature played a crucial role in modern science’s claim on “her” domination, to this date, colonial myths about unlimited sexual freedom among the “noble savages” of the Pacific play a role in mobilizing both the desire and masculinist violence crucial to imperialist projects.

This event forms the first iteration in a series of readings hosted by TBA21–Augarten in relation to the exhibition Tidalectics, currently on view until November 19, 2017. Tidalectics proposes a renegotiation of our manifold relations with the oceans, be they real and/or imaginary, by developing a perspective from within that can be experienced through the artworks working with metaphor, rhythm, narration, and with regard to the texts through historic contingencies.

The reading will be held in English.