Across Burning Glass, Reading Stone, a Reader-in-Residence program brings readers into dialogue with each image set. This month, the Blackwood is pleased to welcome scholar Dina Georgis into dialogue with Erdem Taşdelen in the context of the exhibition Radical Hope.

In this podcast, Georgis and Taşdelen discuss the broader context of Demagogues, Taşdelen's project in Radical Hope: its connections to theatre and dramaturgy, Taşdelen's use of illusion in presenting each iteration of the work, and how creative practices can create conditions of hope in the face of illiberalism.

Dina Georgis' work is situated in the fields of postcolonial and sexuality studies, drawing on psychoanalytic concepts to conceptualize how expressive and political cultures are responses to affective intensities. Her book, The Better Story: Queer Affects from the Middle East (SUNY, 2013) considers the emotional dynamics of political conflict, the stories and subjectivities they produce, and what it means to make an ethical relationship to conflict. Georgis has published essays on aesthetics, memory and the Lebanese civil war and on queer Arab ontologies. Her work can be found in Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, Studies in Gender and Sexuality and in the International Journal of Middle East Studies. In collaboration with Dr. Sara Matthews (WLU), she completed a project supported by SSHRC Development Research Creation entitled “Surveillant Subjectivities: Youth Cultures, Art and Affect.”

See Connections ⤴


Erdem Taşdelen is a visual artist based in Toronto. His practice is rooted in conceptualism and involves a range of media including installation, video, sound, and artist books. His diverse projects bring structures of power into question within the context of culturally learned behaviours, where he often draws from unique historical narratives to address the complexities of current socio-political issues. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions internationally, at venues including Mercer Union, Toronto; AKA Artist-Run, Saskatoon (2020); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen; Untitled Art Society, Calgary (2019); VOX Centre de l’image contemporaine, Montreal (2018); Pera Museum, Istanbul; Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg (2016); Stacion CCA, Kosovo (2015); Kunstverein Hannover; ARTER, Istanbul; Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich; and MAK, Vienna (2013). He has been awarded the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Visual Arts by the Canada Council for the Arts (2016), the Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists by the Hnatyshyn Foundation (2014), and was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2019.

See Connections ⤴

Introduced by Laura Tibi, Educator-in-Residence.

Music: "Bass Rider" by Podington Bear. Used under Creative Commons BY-NC 3.0 license.

Download an episode transcript below.

Media & Resources

Transmissions 2: Radical Hope

A Reader-in-Residence conversation with Dina Georgis and Erdem Taşdelen
▶
Listen
↓ Download