We are happy to announce the first session of KuK-Tuesdays: Series Q – Unraveling Kinship @Hybrid Lab, 18:30 on April 29th. The event series, organized by the Department of Art History as Cultural History (KuK) at Technische Universität Berlin, is now entering its 6th season.
Series Q will be a “friendly takeover” of the KuK-Tuesdays by a project seminar, held at TU Berlin in the winter term of 2024/25. The event series continues to provide a space for exchange between the research at our department, various professional fields, and artistic as well as activist perspectives.
Q as in queer, dear! ... Starting from Berlin's numerous queer communities, the eleven participants have developed their own topics and programmed four fabulous roundtable talks. Queer interests us as a mode of critical analysis that destabilizes norms, as a tool for political mobilization and as a marker of identities that are not only situated outside of the heterosexual norm, but live in active and passionate opposition to it.
The session Unraveling Kinship has been curated by Paula Böke, Selin Celikkol, and Enel Kutluer. The event tackles questions of kinship and individuation in queer communities. Donna Haraway explains kin as "cultivating response-ability for each other, whether one wants to or not. I have a relative; a relative has me.” Kinship, especially for queer people, goes beyond traditional family ties. In communities where the biological family is often times absent, chosen kin represent deep bonds of responsibility. Throughout the evening, we want to explore ways of cultivating queer kinship and how individuals navigate the friction between self-discovery and building community.
We are delighted to welcome Hany Tea (interdisciplinary artist, activist and community organiser), Dr. Promona Sengupta (researcher and artist of the project "Spaceship Beben"), and Tzoa (of the Trans* Inter* Queer Community & Health Centre Casa Kuà in Berlin Kreuzberg) as participants to this initial roundtable of Series Q. Popo Fan (filmmaker and curator of the series "Imagining Queer Bandung") will host the evening.
KuK-Tuesdays: Series Q continues with Substance use, Resilience & Care (27.5.2025) | Queer in Print (24.6.2025) | Evidence of Ephemeral (15.7.2025).
The events are free of charge, and the discussions will be held in English. Following each session, participants are invited to join an informal reception to further the conversation.
The sessions are recorded and will be published. By attending, you agree to potentially be recorded for this publication.