Diana Policarpo: Infected Ear (2020). Digital animation, 8’ loop. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Daniel Vincent Hansen
The 2nd Symposium on Spiritual Technologies explores the history of witchcraft in Norway and Europe and the capitalization of health in the Middle Ages as well as its repercussions today. The symposium is curated by Invisibledrum Art Platform, an artistic research collective investigating holistic practices and spiritual technologies within the field of arts and new ecologies, founded by Amalia Fonfara and Nazaré Soares. All events are organized with Invisibledrum Art Platform in collaboration with Kunsthall Trondheim and the Norwegian Historical Association (HIFO).
Join the conversation between artist Diana Policarpo, and curator and director of Kunsthall Trondheim Stefanie Hessler with an introduction by Guilherme Blanc, former Artistic Director of Galeria Municipal do Porto, and currently Artistic Director – Batalha Film Centre! We will discuss Policarpo’s new work highlighting feminist intersectional concerns and sexual health justice. We will also celebrate the launch of the new book published on the occasion of Policarpo’s exhibition Nets of Hyphae at Kunsthall Trondheim and Galeria Municipal do Porto.
The book launch is co-hosted with Galeria Municipal do Porto and Mousse Publishing.
Click here for your free ticket to join the book launch onsite at Kunsthall Trondheim
Click here to register for Zoom / remote attendance ONLINE
Book Launch: Nets of Hyphae
Diana Policarpo and Stefanie Hessler
Conversation and book launch
Duration: 60 mins
Place: Kunsthall Trondheim and streamed online
Diana Policarpo draws geographical connections between Norway, Portugal, and Spain, where the Claviceps purpurea fungus is found. This parasite infects the ovaries of rye plants, creating purple protrusions. These knobs have been used traditionally by women for abortions and to initiate labor in childbirth. The mushroom is also one of the substances used in making LSD. And, allegedly, during the witch trials in Vardø and other places, women were said to have visions of the devil after ingesting a purple substance—possibly the Claviceps, as Policarpo speculates. These themes are present throughout the exhibition and the book, in which their philosophical implications are discussed from artistic, curatorial, and theoretical perspectives. Making connections across times, geographies, and scales, Nets of Hyphae humbly points to shared habitats and, in the words of the anthropologist Anna Tsing, to possibilities of earthly survival on a precarious planet.
Book design by João M. Machado
Texts by Guilherme Blanc, Emmy Beber, Rune Blix Hagen, Stefanie Hessler, Margarida Mendes, and Katrine Elise Pedersen
Co-published by Kunsthall Trondheim, Galeria Municipal do Porto, and Mousse Publishing
With support from the Arts Council Norway