Reaction

by Nino Jaeger

Noha Ramadan: Body as the Site of Action
Discussion/Workshop

…in the end we stand half naked in the center of Ljubljana - the capital city of Slovenia! Before that we saw each other kissing while walking over the three bridges - again and again. Most of us - I think - were women. How I consider my own person - I am not sure. Maybe I am no man either?

How could all that happen to us? I think it started when we all attended this workshop with Noha Ramadan. She is an Australian performer, "fauxlosopher" and street activist. Noha is researching the revolutionary necessity of liberating the body in public. The body is conceptualized as a means and site of activism that disturbs predetermined meanings of public space.

From her we learend about performances at public spaces, like the subway, that try to involve the people around. This political motivated actions don't want to use "signs" for the content they want to bring in the public awareness, eg. "don't smoke", "no war", "no rape". Because such (no-)signs are based on the concept of black-and-white, bad-and-good. So people are used just to obey this signs. As there is no such thing as a truly good or truly bad you have to decide in many situations of your life what is maybe the best action for a certain situation. What is sad to be truly good or bad is more a matter of power or dominance than truth. So it is necessary for all of us to learn and do what is not very popular: To think, decide and act on the basis of using my brain and body and senses in an autonomous way.

The output of our discussion was a feminist and queer action on a bright Sunday noon.

We tried to involve the "audience" from a public space - like at the center of Ljubljana - by actions of us and our bodies that are unexpected, unusual or improper. Behaving as "normal" couples we walked over the Tromostovje for about one hour - only: there were too many women among us kissing each other in public.