ANTI FEAR ASSEMBLY: POETRY SESSION

HOW CAN POETRY BE ACTIVATED AS A TOOL FOR CHANNELING; A CATALYST FOR THE BUILDING OF AN AFFIRMATIVE AND COMFORTABLE SPACE FOR SHARING?

This zine represents a collection of words, poems & thoughts
that emerged from the Reading / Listening / Sharing Poetry
Workshop held in June 2020, as part of the ANTI FEAR wing of HEKLER Assembly.
Through the intertwined series of readings & discussing,
the workshop activated the poetical medium as a tool for
channeling; sharing stories; and discussing our understandings
of fears, anxieties & issues relevant to our practices and daily
struggles.

With entries by: Eryka Dellenbach, Sonja Blum, Emma Rssx,
Nechama Winston, Bojana Videkanic, Lucía Hinojosa Gaxiola,
Natasa Prljević, Cansu Korkmaz.

ABOUT HOST

Sanja Vasić (b. 1993 in Belgrade, Serbia) is a transdisciplinary artist working through the mediums such as poetry, visual arts, photography, textile installations and various forms of writing. She holds two MA’s: MA in CCC -Critical Curatorial Cybermedia from HEAD – Genève (2019), and a MA in Textile Arts from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade (2018).

Her practice plays with concepts, invents hybrid vocabularies exploring the issues of identity representation, femininity, complexities of interpersonal interactions, self-expressions & modes of existing under the cruelty of the capitalist condition. Her works have been a part of multiple collective publishing projects (Panacea - Castle Edition by Victoria Kieffer & Aether Art Space (Sofia) 2019; Feminisssmmm - Vai Pure in Fuoriregistro #1; Multiple issues of Make8elive Magazine, Photovogue etc.).

She has been a part of multiple exhibitions and art projects, including co-curating & participating in the Unsettling Resonances series of cultural events (2019) in the independant gallery space One Gee in Fog in Geneva. Currently, she is compulsively adding to her blog-site-art- journal (sanjavasic.wordpress.com) & writing for various online magazines about contemporary arts & culture.

ABOUT HEKLER ASSEMBLY

HEKLER ASSEMBLY is a transnational space for art and cultural workers to share, discuss and collectively imagine new ways of instituting based on the principles of self-organizing, community care, critical thinking, political education, distribution of resources, and healing. With alternating hosts, we share practical, historical, and theoretical knowledge about collaborative, pedagogical, and governing models established in response to shifting regimes, colonial and neoliberal violence. We question and learn about radical hospitality and conviviality, eco-centered community organizing, instituting, and art practices that showcase the symptoms we need to transform. Most importantly we continue asking what can be the role of arts now and in the future. Assembly is envisioned as an open collaborative process that includes reading groups, conversations with practitioners, and the ANTI FEAR series. 

ANTI FEAR series are initiated in collaboration with New York-based artist and neurologist Sonja Blum. It is envisioned as a space into which we bring privately held fears into community with others' fears with the aim of building community trust, reciprocal care, and exploring how our fears are connected to reimagining the commons. We aim to create healing feminist environments that celebrate community care through poetry, movement, and other body work, readings, via guest hosts bringing varying practices that untie repressive knots that make us feel fearful and powerless. Prior to each session participants are asked to think about / try to identify fears that are at the forefront of their mind and body. Sharing fears within the group is optional at the start of each session.