The Pregnant Oyster – Doubts on Universalism

An exhibition that asks how it is possible to think of world, humanity and justice despite the internal paradoxes of Western Universalism – and how to do so beyond relativism and identity fragmentation.

When the free-floating modernist roof of the Congress Hall collapsed in 1980, a Western symbol of freedom crumbled. The exhibition The Pregnant Oyster-– Doubts on Universalism traces cracks and constructions of minor narratives of world after Western Universalism. Taking inspiration from the ambivalent nickname that Berliners gave the building that is the home of HKW since 1989 due to its form, it asks how horizons of a shared world are born out of concrete, incorporated, situated narratives. The oyster as a queering animal that changes its gender at will, occasionally producing precious surprises, fragile and valuable, is a metaphor for this meandering search. This exhibition, conversations and workshops are the result of the research and residency project Minor Universality, which brings together positions across the visual arts, writing and the sonic. The propositions in the exhibition derive from situated forms of doubt and engagements of the dominant through the minor and share an urgency to work with the birth of a world within the ruins of the former West.

With contributions by Filipa César, Emeka Ogboh, SAVVYZAAR (Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock, Kelly Krugman) and SAVVY.doc (Sagal Farah), Adania Shibli, Camille de Toledo

Thursday, 30 June 2022

4pm
Opening

5pm
Welcome
Bernd Scherer, Franck Hofmann and Jonas Tinius

5.15pm
Conversation
With Adania Shibli and Markus Messling

6.15pm
WITNESSES OF THE FUTURE. Performance for two voices and the Earth
By and with Camille de Toledo, with the translation and participation of Bitsy Knox

7pm
Conversation
With Emeka Ogboh and Jonas Tinius

10pm
Party and DJ Set
By Emeka Ogboh, at Restaurant Weltwirtschaft

Friday, 1 July 2022

12 noon–2pm
Workshop
With Adania Shibli

3pm
Guided exhibition tour

4–5.30pm
Listening Session
With SAVVY Contemporary (Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock, Sagal Farah, Kelly Krugman)

Saturday, 2 July 2022

2pm
Guided exhibition tour
Guided exhibition tour and conversation with the artists Filipa César and Sana na N’Hada

Sunday, 3 July 2022

2pm
Guided exhibition tour

The exhibition The Pregnant Oyster-– Doubts on Universalism and the Minor Universality Residencies is funded as part of the project Minor Universality. Narrative World Productions After Western Universalism at Saarland University, which received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 819931).