Postmemory: Fragments / Crypt

Authors

  • Ben Spatz University of Huddersfield
  • Lxo Cohen Independent Curator
  • Lindsey Dodd University of Huddersfield
  • N. Eda Erçin York St John University
  • Paula Kolar Holocaust Centre North
  • Agnieszka Mendel Independent Artist

Abstract

This photo essay gathers evidence of the video works Postmemory: Fragments and Postmemory: Crypt, which ran from June 27 to August 4, 2022, at Holocaust Centre North at the University of Huddersfield in northern England. Included here are photographs from the video works and their installation, as well as the complete exhibition program. In an accompanying statement, Spatz positions this work within the broader Judaica project, an extended investigation of contemporary jewish identity developed over the past decade, and in relation to the four themes suggested by the editors of this special issue: ethics, knowledge, affect, and power.

Author Biographies

Ben Spatz, University of Huddersfield

Ben Spatz (they/them) is a nonbinary scholar-practitioner working at the intersections of artistic research and critical theories of embodiment and identity. They are Reader in Media and Performance at University of Huddersfield, author of What a Body Can Do and other books, editor of the videographic Journal of Embodied Research, and a leader in the development of new audiovisual embodied research methods. www.urbanresearchtheater.com

Lxo Cohen, Independent Curator

Lxo Cohen is a trans* non-binary curator whose practice continually decomposes through poetry, writing and the curatorial. Cohen’s research is informed by ongoing explorations in queer and trans* studies, the collective dimension of learning, creative liberatory praxis and queer methodologies. In 2020 they participated in the Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Young Curators Residency Programme in Madrid, Spain, exploring the erotics of language and poetry, architecture and the body, as queer, live and circulatory. Cohen graduated from the MFA in Curating at Goldsmiths and previously studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.

Lindsey Dodd, University of Huddersfield

Lindsey Dodd is Reader in Modern European History at the University of Huddersfield and has published widely on children’s lives in France during the Second World War, memory, and oral history. Among other things, she teaches on the university’s MA in Holocaust & Genocide Studies. She is author of French Children Under the Allied Bombs, 1940-1945: An Oral History (2016) and Feeling Memory: Remembering Wartime Childhoods in France (forthcoming). She is currently experimenting with the potential of affect, affective knowledge and affective methodologies to reimagine historical research and writing.

N. Eda Erçin, York St John University

Nazlıhan Eda Erçin is a performer/researcher with a background in sociology and ethnography. She holds a practice-based PhD in drama from the University of Exeter, specializing in the performance of gender, ethnicity and language. Eda us currently a Lecturer in Performance at York St John University. Previously she taught at Louisiana State University and managed the HopKins Black Box Performance Laboratory. Her work has been published in Performance Research and Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.

Paula Kolar, Holocaust Centre North

Paula Kolar is Curator of Contemporary Practices at Holocaust Centre North, Huddersfield. Born in Vienna (Austria) and based in Liverpool, she is an artist working in performance writing, print, analog photography, and sound. At Holocaust Centre North, she worked on a series of survivor-led zines, telling some of the lesser-known stories of its archive, and is now coordinating the artist residency programme. Paula holds an M.F.A from the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, and a BA in Fine Art from Lancaster University.

Agnieszka Mendel, Independent Artist

Agnieszka Mendel is a vocalist, actress, and coach of voice and stage presence. She graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland in Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology and the Gardzienice Theater Practices Academy. For 15 years, she was closely associated with the European Center for Theater Practices Gardzienice, where she created leading acting and vocal roles in performances by Włodzimierz Staniewski. As part of her own artistic activity, she composes, writes texts and performs. She is the leader of several music groups, including Tara Gayan and Yaron Trio.

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Published

2023-07-07

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1-2 (2023): Performing Practice-Based Research

Section

PBR and Relational Entanglements of Technique

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