Spatial Politics

The CCC RP [critical curatorial cybernetic conceptual contemporary communal research practices] Master of the Visual Arts Department at HEAD Genève is a cross-disciplinary, transnational and multilingual study program with focus on voicing the specific in the contemporary condition of globalities. It trains students (with art and non-art backgrounds) to develop a methodology for situating and materialising a multi-layered research project by the means of art. The student's future operational fields are contemporary art, curatorial projects, extra-governmental entities, scientific research collaborations, museums, activism, social platforms, self-organised platforms, human rights activities, or a practice-based PhD.

The CCC Public Seminar in 2020/21 will be organized by the Theory Fiction seminar and focus on art research practices mobilizing science fiction literature, futurity and the politics of alienation. In 2020/21 the publishing platform CCC TERMS/ES also plans to participate in P.A.G.E.S. book fair 11-13 December 2020. Seminar languages are English and French.

Le Master de Recherche CCC RP [les pratiques de recherche critiques, curatoriales, cybernétiques, conceptuelles, contemporaines, communales] du département Arts Visuels de la HEAD Genève est un programme pluridisciplinaire, transdisciplinaire, transnational et multilingue qui s'attache à exprimer le spécifique dans la condition mondiale contemporaine. Le programme forme les étudiant·e·x·s (venant de formations artistiques ou non) au développement d'une méthodologie pour situer et matérialiser, par les moyens de l'art, un projet de recherche multicouche. Les champs d'application futurs des étudiant·e·x·s sont l'art contemporain, les projets curatoriaux, les organismes extra-gouvernementaux, les collaborations avec la recherche scientifique, les musées, l'activisme, les plateformes communautaires, les plateformes auto-gérées, les droits humains ou les doctorats centrés sur la pratique.

Le séminaire public du CCC en 2020/21 sera organisé par le séminaire Theory Fiction et se concentrera sur les pratiques de recherche artistique mobilisant la littérature de science-fiction, l'avenir et la politique d'aliénation. En 2020/21, la plateforme d'édition CCC TERMS/ES prévoit également de participer à la foire du livre P.A.G.E.S. du 11 au 13 décembre 2020. Les langues du séminaire sont l'anglais et le français.

Growing attention has been devoted to the political geography of urban social movements but trauma, its urban context and spatial politics, have been significantly neglected. This paper aims to develop the concept of 'queer urban trauma' and its aftermath in the sense of urban and spatial activism, through an analysis of two traumatic events for the LGBT community in Israel. It explains how traumatic events taking place within urban contexts affect the spatial politics of LGBT and queer urban activism. Based on geographies of sexualities and queer theory, this paper aims to fill this gap by analysing traumatic events in two Israeli cities: the 2009 shooting of two young queers in a youth club in Tel Aviv, and the 2015 stabbing of a young girl during the Jerusalem Pride Parade. Tel Aviv is considered the liberal centre of Israel and a local 'gay heaven', as well as a destination for global gay tourism. Jerusalem on the other hand is usually described with a sense of alienation among LGBT and queer individuals and movements, where every political , spatial, cultural and financial achievement is a struggle. We argue that the politics of trauma are constructed differently in these two urban settings, producing important nuances of urban activism and politics. Through this empirical discussion, we develop the concept of 'queer urban trauma', revealing divergent forms of spatial visibility, presence and activity of the queer movements within urban spaces.