alpha nova & galerie futura
Thursday 25 June, 18-21h
Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin
The Radical Empathy Lab (REL) was founded by Berit Fischer in 2016 as a nomadic experimental platform that runs between the somatic experientable, action and critical reflection. An ongoing experimental format of encounter for an alternative and holistic production of knowledge, which – embraces what Brazilian theorist Suely Rolnik calls the “knowing body”.
In particular during the current pandemic of Covid-19, established concepts of co-existence, inter-relationality, response-ability and care are put to test. Questions of how we want to live and work together – as humans and within our natural habitat– are of urgency more than ever.
The Lab experiments with transdisciplinary and holistic advances for creating critical consciousness in which the cognitive intertwines with the non-semiotic, the sensual and experiential. It strives to activate connectivity to our sensing and knowing body to promote critical consciousness and relationality between the participants and their environment. We will experiment with holistic and collective practices, that will range from feminist and radical pedagogies, to Deep Listening exercises by experimental composer Pauline Oliveros, and meditative elements. The Radical Empathy Lab opens up a space of possibility for encounter that enables and promotes connectivity and trust in ourselves, and the “Other”.
The Radical Empathy Lab experiments with new forms of being together, that momentarily allow to reflect, to re-feel and undo a reactionary an-aesthesia (Greek: an-aesthēsis: without sensation), that is often nurtured by neoliberal capitalism and by dominant, separationist and systemic structures. REL moves between singularity and collective activity. It examines the relation between micro- and macro-dimensions of agency, as possible practices and spaces for “self-empowerment” and as an attempt to decolonise and de-subjectivate the (social) body and its relationality to the “Other”.
