ephemeropterae 2017

02.06.2017 - 15.09.2017

Thyssen-Bornemisza Augarten Contemporary, Wien / Österreich

EPHEMEROPTERÆ 2017: An Evocative Exploration of Oceanic Sciences, Aquatic Soundscapes, and Speculative Poetics

EPHEMEROPTERÆ, TBA21’s annual spoken-word performance series held since 2012 in the Augarten Park brings together, artists, poets, musicians, scientists, architects, and philosophers to explore the rich traditions and evanescent articulations of poetry, literature, theory, performance, and language-based artistic practice. These unique, open-air acts complement TBA21’s exhibitions and are based on forms of “staged knowledge” or “performative rhetoric”, embodied forms of discourse and articulation, which create spaces of imagination and inspiration.... EPHEMEROPTERÆ offers an arena dedicated to the nature and the experience of oral and performative practices and reveals itself as a potent and thought-provoking site of contemporary expression.

The sixth season of EPHEMEROPTERÆ accompanies the exhibition Tidalectics, which proposes a new mode of commitment to the oceans, a mode coming from the seas themselves, focusing on the poetic, mythical, spiritual, and solidary dimensions of the oceans. Tidalectics is a term coined by the celebrated poet-historian Kamau Brathwaite and the exhibition features works that have come about as a result of the TBA21–Academy and its ground-breaking research and exploration trips, as well as other works by artists whose practice is profoundly dedicated to the oceans.

This year's EPHEMEROPTERÆ program accompanies and complements these ideas by engaging with themes related to the oceans, deep ecologies, and ecofeminisms, with oceanic sciences, ecopedagogy, aquatic soundscapes, and speculative poetics. Participants in the 2017 season include: Ursula Biemann, Warwick Fox, Ellie Ga, David Gruber, Florian Hecker, David Horvitz, Joan Jonas, Hilary Koob Sassen, Linton Kwesi Johnson, J.M. Ledgard, Chus Martinez, Nicola Masciandaro, Astrida Neimanis, Trevor Paglen, Josef Penninger, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Markus Reymann, Nainoa Thompson, Janaina Tschäpe, Jana Winderen, Susanne M. Winterling, and Peter Zinovieff.

Offered free of charge, the individual 40 to 60-minute live-acts are diverse in both content and form, and are repeated on a weekly basis throughout the summer from June to September (with a summer break between July 15–August 24)