TUESDAY, JUNE 21 2022 at 5 PM – 9 PM Tenthaus Gallery, Maridalsveien 3
Tenthaus welcomes everybody for a guided tour in the exhibition Dandara, and a Reclaim Pride social hang out in the Queer Boteco.
Artist Maya Økland will be there to talk about the exhibition and to just hang out. Chairs and tables will be put up, and some snacks served. At 20:00 Tenthaus.no will broadcast an online radio talk between Maya Økland and researcher Esra Ummak about their research on intimate partner violence among LGBs in Norway.
The exhibition Dandara is dedicated to the trans woman Dandara dos Santos and the cis woman Dandara who were both subjected to deadly violence because they chose to live their lives in freedom. The black cis woman Dandara escaped from slavery in the 17th century to establish a free society in the rainforest until she was arrested, while Dandara dos Santos was brutally murdered by senseless hate crime because she lived openly as a trans woman in 2017. What remains is the certainty of their existence and the courage they showed.
From a queer feminist perspective with references to shamanism and Brazilian candomblé, Maya Økland has performed ritual acts in a search for strategies to achieve resilience to violence. With her in the exhibition, she has invited Ingrid Fadnes and Fábio Nascimento to show the installation «Killer Forest» about how nature is also exposed to violence through short-term strategies for profit and impoverished monocultures.
As part of the exhibition, a Queer Boteco will be set up outside Tenthaus at irregular intervals, inspired by informal Brazilian street bars.
The exhibition is supported by the Norwegian Arts Council, Fritt Ord Foundation and Bergesen foundation.
Esra Ummak is a scholar and associate professor at VID Specialized University and worked as a visiting researcher at the psychology department of the Oslo University. Their master studies was about the attitudes of Mersin University students’ towards lesbian and gay individuals in Psychological Counselling and Guidance Department (PCG) at the Mersin University. Their PhD project was an experimental study regarding the group guidance on dealing with homophobia in PCG Department at the Çukurova University. Their first post-doc project was a cross-cultural comparative study of lesbian and bisexual women’s internalized heterosexism, and life satisfaction in Belgium and Turkey in Psychology Department at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Their second post-doc project was about intimate partner violence and internalized heterosexism among lesbian and bisexual women in Denmark and Turkey in Psychology Department at the Copenhagen University. Esra Ummak’s current project is about intimate partner violence among queers in Norway in Psychology Department at the Oslo University and VID Specialized University. Their current research interests include social cure approach to social identity, intimate partner violence, queer of colour and queers` mental health.
Bildetekst: Maya Økland, Oshun da mi ó / Oshun created me / Oshun skapte meg, 2022