Wednesday, 28 June 2023, 7.30 pm, diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery
Screening and conversation organised by
The Cursed Assembly
More often than we know it, the surface of things encapsulates a deviant story or materiality that flees from the present time or from expected modes of perception. Be it as ways to maintain power, as fossilized expressions of marginalization or as delusions, we see secrets as an important motif to critically approach History, Science and all modes of accumulated knowledge.
As part of The Cursed Assembly‘s programme, this series of gatherings facilitates a discussion around secrets & secrecy, taking films as a starting point for a conversation. We gather on every last Wednesday of the month, and each gathering focuses on a different mode through which secrets come to be.
Each session consists of a short contextualization of a movie, a screening, and a discussion. We want to create a space to watch movies together, but we also emphasize the discussion-based part of it. We want to know what you think! The discussion follows the film, but the topic will most likely feed forward into the viewing of the film itself.
28 June 2023 – #5 IDENTITY The Watermelon Woman
[A so called “minority” of the historical present represents a secret of the historical past – missing explanations will never be proper “objects” in the archive, rather scattered and almost unintelligible references. The access to a socio-cultural genealogy will frequently be expressed through the least flattering and most oppressive descriptive methods, articulated by the ones responsible for all instances of erasure. This mysterious historical self-understanding, even in its most violent moments, is still a profoundly exciting and hopeful process: one that transforms secrets into common reality.]
