14 February 2018, 13:30–15:30 / Amsterdam
Join the Army of Love on Wednesday, 14 February at the “preliminary program” of Hold Me Now – Feel and Touch in an Unreal World as part of Studium Generale’s 2017-18 extensive artistic research trajectory that focuses on touch in artistic, philosophical, and political terms to conceive of how the haptic is thought and experienced. The Army’s workshop, which includes practical exercises to enhance mutual love through haptic experiences, will take place in the Rietveld Gym at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Fred. Roeskestraat 96, Amsterdam.
Army of Love founder and novelist Ingo Niermann, bonding coach Mirjana Smolic, and Casco curator Staci Bu Shea will present the ethos of the Army of Love and a background on the project-exhibition at Casco. In addition, project contributors or so-called “love soldiers in training” will share practical exercises with the audience. The event serves as a subsequent recruitment opportunity, next to the exhibition and following the Army of Love training camp organized by Casco in 2017, throughout which the politics of touch was thoroughly practiced and tested. The camp included the workshop “Touching Tenderly” about touch, exchange, and consent by activist and educator Marije Janssen, while dancer Jaime Conde-Salazar led experimental, non-ocular visualization exercises called “Touch Improvisation,” and dancer and researcher Aimar Pérez Galí presented his project “The Touching Community,” an embodied research project that explores the impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis on the dance community.
This event takes place within the last month of Casco’s project-exhibition Army of Love with Dora García and Ingo Niermann, on view until Sunday, 25 February. Visit Casco to see documentation of the training camp, furniture designed by García in collaboration with the architect Olga Subirós, as well as practical and conceptual research contributions related to touch by Janssen, Conde-Salazar, Pérez Galí, and many others.