11:00-14:00 – Vika Kirchenbauer, Reading Circle Session #2, please register at: research@schwulesmuseum.de

15:00 – Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, The Five Ages, Floral Arrangement Performance

A floral archaeology that explores the symbolic relationships between human history and plant life, specifically within the context of a queer aesthetics. The work is primarily inspired by postcard images from the “Weissbierstube” in the former Berlin Museum – venue for the 1984 Eldorado exhibition. The Weissbierstube was legendary for its Sunday brunch buffet and a meeting point for local West Berlin gay and lesbian activists, artists, and academics. Postcards depict a buffet spread with lavish flower bouquets as decoration. The artist has drawn on these images – and the flowers they show – to develop the piece. Nemerofsky selects five flowers to symbolize five distinct moments in the history of El Dorado, referencing both its incarnation as nightclub and exhibition, as well as its general application as a legendary, faraway site of utopian longing. The flowers stand in a ceramic vase designed specially for them by the artist. The vase provides each flower with its own distinct opening, while arranging the flowers to interact contrapuntally, creating a bouquet of colliding and overlapping temporalities. A guided tour accompanies the artwork, in which the artist recounts the history of the five ages while preparing and arranging the flowers in the vase.

16:00 – Lucas Odahara, The Republic of Silence, Listening Assembly and Talk

In The Republic of Silence Lucas Odahara presents a selection of audio files. Between sounds of ‘Mixed-Species Flocks of Birds’ of the amazonian region and a collection of sounds of protests, Odahara opens up a listening assembly and talks about history, evolution and the construction of incomplete images through a fragmented mode of historical listening.

“Among most of my friends is known that one’s own stories are partially written somewhere else. We are used to follow the news from countries that rewrite our laws and rebuild our images. We used to read Susan Miller’s monthly horoscope. We coordinated our hairdresser appointments according to the phases of the moon. We listened to the songs that taught us something in languages our parents didn’t know. We watch foreign shows and learn foreign art. We let the storm change our plans and the television guide our revolution. We were not trained to listen to our voices as unique and heroic. We listened and repeated. And we listened so much. We became proficient listeners.”

18:00 – Conversation with Margareta von Oswald and Vivian Ziherl on frontier imaginaries and the post-ethnographic museum.

19:00 – Wanted: a history of homosexuality. Found: an ‘archive of ordinary racism’. Lecture by Heike Bauer on the colonial entanglements of modern homosexuality.

Magnus Hirschfeld is a celebrated figure in the modern histories of homosexuality and transgender. Best known today for his sexological studies, political activism and involvement in queer subcultures, he is often represented as a figure of sexual emancipation, liberation and progress. But Hirschfeld’s apprehension of suffering and injustice had racialised as well as gendered limits. This talk introduces some of the lesser-known writings on race and colonialism. Based on material from my new book, The Hirschfeld Archives: Violence, Death, and Modern Queer Culture, it reflects on the colonial entanglements of modern homosexuality and what Ann Cvetkovich calls the ‘archive of ordinary racism’ that continues to haunt it.

20:00 – Garden Grill Party