Roundtable #2: (Re)claiming
A conversation about (re)claiming agency over our own personhood and identity through the appropriation of terms and symbols. Think along with us about strategies and forms of resistance, taking symbols, terms, and attitudes that have been ascribed to us and making them our own.
3 September 2022 14:30 - 16:30
Identifying, or being identified, as a 'woman', 'queer', 'Black' or 'Jewish' often means other, more dominant groups in society come up with names 'for you', to mark a difference from the norm, or as a deliberate insult. To (re)claim agency over one's own personhood and identity, it has become a strategy and form of resistance to take the symbols, terms, and attitudes that have been ascribed to oneself, and make them one's own. One example of such reclaiming is the use of the triangle, which was originally used by the Nazis to label groups of people for their genocidal agenda with a modern means of visual communication. From the 1970s onwards, it became a sign for anti-fascism or, depending on the colour, LGBTQI+ rights. In the Feminist Design Strategies exhibition room, this example was taken to kaleidoscopically view feminist forms of reclaiming within Dutch feminist activism. In this roundtable, we will hopefully draw connections across differences and be inspired by the various applications of the strategy of reclaiming agency over (visual) language.
Project:
Collecting Otherwise