Cooking Sections & Mary Maggic
An evening of lecture performances by the Cooking Sections and Mary Maggic
Date: 1 October 2022 (Saturday) 6-8pm
Trafoclub
6pm: Mary Maggic: Open Source Estrogen
7pm: Cooking Sections: When [Salmon Salmon [Salmon]]
The lectures will be held in English. Free entry, all are welcome!
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Mary Maggic: Open Source Estrogen - a lecture performance on hormonal histories and fictions
How do bodies queer at the molecular level? How is this queering inextricably tied to industrial capitalism? Combining body and gender politics and environmental toxicity, this workshop centers on the concept of “open source estrogen,” the underlying premise that hormonal molecules are ubiquitously all around us, and available for us to hack, mutate, and become-with. Through this process of socio-political excavation, we can begin to “emancipate the hormone molecule,” unboxing its molecular mystique. Maggis is currently exploring the environmental and cultural impact of the hormone estrogen and the possibilities of how DIY and open source tools and protocols of citizen or community science can counteract the lack of knowledge about and inaccessibility of hormones. Her research also covers the intricate system of hormone production as well as the moral and environmental dilemmas involved.
Mary Maggic (b. 1991, Los Angeles) is a nonbinary Chinese-American artist and researcher working within the intersections of body and gender politics and ecological implications of capitalism. Based in Vienna since 2017, Maggic frequently uses biohacking as a xeno-feminist practice of care that serves to demystify invisible lines of molecular biopower. After completing their Masters at MIT Media Lab (Design Fiction), their project “Open Source Estrogen” was awarded Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica '17 in Hybrid Arts, and in 2019 they completed a 10-month Fulbright residency in Yogyakarta, Indonesia investigating the relationship between Javanese mysticism and the plastic pollution crisis. Maggic is a recipient of the 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, and their work has exhibited internationally including Kunsthal Charlottenborg (DK), Centre de Cultura Contemporánia de Barcelona, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Science Gallery and ICA London, Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, Zurich, HKW, Art Laboratory, Berlin, Jeu de Paume, Paris, Jogja National Museum, Yogyakarta. They are a current member of the online network Hackteria: Open Source Biological Art, the laboratory theater collective Aliens in Green, the Asian feminist collective Mai Ling Vienna, as well as a contributor to the radical syllabus project Pirate Care and to the online Cyberfeminism Index. https://maggic.ooo/
The lecture is part of 'Support structures', an event
series around practices of caring and coping
fotó: Theresa Wey, 2022
Cooking Sections: When [Salmon Salmon [Salmon]]
In their lecture performance Cooking Sections trace the construction of salmon — the colour of a wild fish, which is neither wild, nor fish (nor even salmon). Farmed salmon are a constructed animal, one of the most recently domesticated and industrialised species in human history.
In the performative-lecture Cooking Sections reflect on their expansive body of work on the environmental impact of salmon farms which can be traced far beyond the circumference of open-net pens, and everything that escapes through them. Salmon farms have transformed communities, ecologies, food webs, and the way we see the world. Questioning what colours we expect in our ‘natural’ environment, it asks us to examine how our perception of colour is changing as we are changing the planet. From the Isle of Skye, Cooking Sections document how industries are changing the planet’s metabolism, redefining the shades we live in, censoring our sensitivity to the Earth and its hues, while constructing new extrativist territories.
Cooking Sections, established in London in 2013 by Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe, uses food as a lens and a tool to observe landscapes in transformation. The artists have worked on multiple iterations of the long-term site-responsive CLIMAVORE project since 2015, exploring how to eat as humans change climates. Their work has been exhibited at Tate Britain, Serpentine Galleries, Delfina Foundation, London; SALT, Istanbul; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Lafayette Anticipations, Pars; HKW, Berlin; the Taipei Biennial, 58th Venice Biennale, Shanghai Biennial, Los Angeles Public Art Triennial, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Sharjah Art Biennial, Performa17, Manifesta12, and New Orleans Triennial among others. They have been residents at Headlands Center for the Arts, California; and The Politics of Food at Delfina Foundation, London. They lead a studio unit at the Royal College of Art, London, and were guest professors at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. Cooking Sections were nominated for the Turner Prize in 2021. They were awarded the Special Prize at the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize and were nominated for the Visible Award for socially-engaged practices. Daniel is the recipient of the 2020 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize for Being Shellfish.
photo: Graeme Robertson
Photos of the event: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=451616330284827&set=pcb.451618113617982
Supported by:
The event is supported by the Green Theatre programme, funded by the Ministry of Human Resources' additional support for performing arts organisations.
