Embodied Voices & Critical Narratives

Hand raised in a crowded room — What use is poetry?
Standing apart I looked at her and said — We have poetry
So we do not die of history. I had no idea what I meant.
— Meena Alexander, “Question Time” from Birthplace with Buried Stones (Northwestern University Press, 2013)

Situating transgenerational, feminist dialogues as modes of critique that disrupt dominant narratives, "EMBODIED VOICES & CRITICAL NARRATIVES" brings together New York-based artist and composer Monika Weiss and Berlin-based artist and writer Vanessa Gravenor. The program features their recent film and sound works, followed by a conversation moderated by media theorist and art writer Natasha Chuk. This program builds upon Weiss and Gravenor’s 2024 presentation, "Thinking History, Gender, and Violence," moderated by painter and curator Zofia nierodzińska at alpha nova & galerie futura in Berlin. Both editions are recorded towards a forthcoming publication. Resonating with Meena Alexander’s thoughts on poetry as a response to the pain of history, the presentation considers po-ethical strategy for working with its matter. Alexander (1951–2018) was an acclaimed poet and Weiss’ friend of many years; her poem Aletheia (Girl in River Water) is set to music in Weiss’s work presented at Goethe-Institut New York.
"Embodied Voices & Critical Narratives” adds another chapter to the artists' long-standing cross-generational friendship understood as feminist practice. Following a screening of two selected works—the world premiere of Malleus-Medusa (2024–2026) by Weiss and the first chapters of Gravenor’s Es gibt keine Gefahr [There is no Danger] (work in progress) —the conversation will explore how their sonic, performance-based, and moving-image practices serve as vehicles of critique. Rooted in affective feminist theories, these works explore visual and sonic resonances of co-presence. Tracing traumatic memories through sonic layers and urban landscapes, Weiss and Gravenor employ the voice and body to engage with the human, more-than-human, and ecological processes that write histories from the feminist margins. By intercepting these voices, the artists resist cultural pressures to erase the traumatic, offering paths through transformative storytelling. While Gravenor’s work employs semi-documentary and confessional methods to archive and disrupt narratives, Weiss’s performative, musical, and movement-based lamentations propose a return to the archaic, tangible, and ecofeminist transnationality.

The artists wish to thank the following institutions that supported the projects on view:
Special Collections at Washington University Libraries, WhiteBox, New York, The 2025 Stone DeGuire Contemporary Art Award, and Schleswig-Holsteinisches Künstlerhaus.

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Host or Publisher Goethe-Institut New York