MISCELLANEA

We are in the same storm, but we’re not on the same boat | Federica Bueti, Urok Shirhan | Performative Reading in English, duration 45’ |
2-3 October 2024
Neon Foundation, Athens



In times of crisis, it is often said that “we are all on the same boat.” In their book Multitude, Toni Negri and Michael Hardt write this very sentence, referring to the junction of empire and globalization. But is this really the case? After all, you and I do not share the same realities. We co-exist and our lives intersect, but the truth is, we are not the same. We are separated by privilege and the deep scars of inequalities, along with the effects of racial capitalism and slow violence. How, then, do we engage in acts of “togetherness” that acknowledge this “difference” that makes up our difference? What acts of solidarity might be possible that take note of the fact that sometimes we must walk different paths? And what kind of language can we invent to describe something more complex than “togetherness” and subtler than “antagonism”? Through a performative notes exchange, writer Federica Bueti and multidisciplinary artist and researcher Urok Shirhan reflect on questions of language, belonging, and the implications of inhabiting that space of agonism opened by being Together-in-difference.