Kulturmeile

On May 11 and 12, the Kulturmeile Dortmund invites you to explore the artistic and cultural diversity of cultural institutions in the city center through a variety of free offers. A comprehensive program for young and old will take place on both days between noon and 6 p.m. - further information on the participating cultural venues and the program can be found at  www.kulturmeile-dortmund.de.

Program at the Dortmunder Kunstverein:

• SATURDAY
  3 pm and 5 pm
  Performance by Ja Jess - by the use of its displays
  Ja Jess (they/them) understands their performativity as artist as actor. In this way, they generate "trans-figurative organisms" that feed on collective social fictions. As an actress and drag character of the female character under the name "Doll", Ja Jess began working as a stripper. "Doll" enters the strip club as a theater of the binary gaze and the capitalization of the female read body. "Doll" represents the female figure as a collective, un-dead social figure. After each night in which "Doll" works, Ja Jess scripts the cinematography of this role in the club. In 2023, they developed a performance from this practice, collapsing notions of sculpture, stage and costume within cross-genre environments. The coffin cushions within the exhibition as part of this environment introduce the continuing narrative of "Doll". They come from funeral parlors. As a new persona "Jane Doe", Ja Jess practices the dressing and make-up of the deceased, as a form of re-staging a deceased person on their own body, as a spectacle of themselves, or also as a camouflaging and live make-up of dead bodies. The persona "Jane Doe" appeared for the first time in a funeral parlor in NYC, the name given in the USA to the unidentifiable anonymous deceased. Within the performance "in the use of its display", Ja Jess now transfers Jane Doe to the exhibition space of the Dortmunder Kunstverein. 
• SUNDAY
  12 am to 5 pm
  Based on an idea by the artists' collective avaf - always vomit after formalities
  The exhibition "Unselfing" deals with the principle of self-dissolution. With the idea of being able to create a different relationship to the world beyond the boundaries of the subjective. Like an act of empathy with one's own natural and social environment, "unselfing" can represent a state that can be achieved by immersing oneself in meditation or heightened attention to an external object, for example when contemplating nature or art. The performance "avaf - always vomit after formalities" invites you to dissolve the identity of the individual in favor of belonging to a group. Under guidance, masks and aprons are created in Dadaist style. Phrases made up of the initials of the artist collective avaf are intended to inspire the creation of a new, different and perhaps previously unknown identity.
  assume vivid astro focus / avaf ist ein 2001 gegründetes Künstlerkollektiv. avaf kann je nach den Projekten, an denen es beteiligt ist, unterschiedliche Formationen annehmen. avaf arbeitet mit einer Vielzahl von Medien, darunter Installationen, Malerei, Wandteppiche, Neon, Video, Tapeten, Skulpturen, Performances usw. und konfrontiert häufig Geschlecht, Politik und eingebettete kulturelle Codes durch einen Überfluss an Formen und Farben.

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