A Room to Sit Together
with All Those You Carry within Your Heart and in Your Steps
A room to acknowledge
all those who came before us and paved our way here
to those who opened up spaces for us
fought for the privileges we have today
and gave weight to words that articulate our truths
to those we have learned from
who have shaped our views
A room for those who could be here
But are not
Today
A room to sit together
A room to pay respects
A room to re-visit
A room to imagine a world where bodies and beings move freely
(poem no. 4)
into this restless Third Space
2023, mapmaking workshop
We never really start in the beginning, do we?
Like many things in this restless third space, you have traveled far
And sometimes you find yourself not knowing where you are
Or how you got here
Reflecting on the landscape and subjects of the Strandbad Tegelsee as a starting point to explore feelings of disembodiment and dislocation, or living between at least two worlds, two bodies. When we are out of context, or when we are living in between contrasting contexts, it can be diffcult to feel fully present in the moment, let alone “belong”.
And yet why deny or resist this condition? So how do we acknowledge and build our emotional rooms, what do they look like? How do we build tunnels or paths through our different contexts, how to envision this third space?
In this workshop, I invited participants to make a map of their emotional spaces, and bridges that connect them, with the guide of a zine of short exercises and poems I made. Each participant received a map card and drawing materials, we read my poem exercises together and the site of the Strandbad served as an incitation to the map making process.
This workshop + presentation was in the framework of an artistic event series of lectures and performative workshops by Fantastic Feminist Futures.
