After Kümmernis Part II: A concluding, but not final, conversation on history, memory, remembrance and the role of art in distinguishing the difference

Hybrid event: Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen | Live on Freirad | Streaming via Zoom (registration via Eventbrite) | Streaming via Facebook

After Kümmernis Part II brings artist and thinker virgil b/g taylor into discussion with Büchsenhausen Fellow Sam Richardson. The first part of the event series, The Intersections of Struggle, Liberation and Movements Born of Grief, took place in April 2022. virgil b/g taylor explores histories of care, crisis, exclusion and toxicity, and more specifically in the German context he is interested in interrogating the role of history in distinguishing the difference between remembrance and memory, and asking what is the role of art in distinguishing that difference?

Both Richardson‘s and virgil b/g taylor‘s practices are invested in history as not something of the past, but something living today, yesterday and tomorrow, as notions of memory, in particular to violence and subjugation, are processed and relayed in ways that often benefit the state and larger structures of power. Whether it be the exploration of a repressed queer saint, or the investigation into anti-semitism, what are the ways in which these histories are both ignored and continue to be present in their legacies today?

virgil b/g taylor will show work that relates to various methods of investigating these questions and present a video, Hansa Boy etwas das kommt nie wieder vor, which was created as an extension of a work exhibited in Shunted Sculptures Fleeting Words, the Meisterschüler*innen-Austellung of the HfK Bremen at the Weserburg Museum for Modern Art, DE. The museum sits on the Teerhof peninsula in the Weser and is most quickly accessed by Bürgermeister-Smidt-Brücke. Smidt’s long 19th century political career stands out for his decades long explicit commitment to removal of Jewish people from Bremen.

Richardson will also share work related to their fellowship here in Innsbruck that explores legacies of grief, gender and violence. The two will explore further what happens when one starts engaging in memory, remembrance and history through art and action.

This event is part of FREIRAD on tour.

virgil b/g taylor is a faggot, living in Germany. He makes fag tips, an online speculative zine. He is one half of sssssssssSsss, a study-friendship with Ashkan Sepahvand, a third of Indefinite Leave to Remain with Moad Musbahi and Vishal Kumaraswamy, and a fraction of What Would An HIV Doula Do?, a collective of artists, writers, caretakers, activists and more gathered in response to the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic. His work explores histories of care, crisis, exclusion and toxicity.