The Body as a Border Between the Private and the Public is an artistic, practical and theoretical intervention taking on the forms of an exhibition, workshops and lectures about the body, sexuality, excess and eros, film screenings and performances by artists and activists from the US, Argentina, Slovenia, Tunisia / The Netherlands and Croatia that strongly speaks about physicality, sexuality, sensuality, vulnerability and power.
The programme touches upon the topics and ways in which we use, exploit, control, sell, neglect, but also nourish and emancipate our bodies. On the one hand, the project addresses the notion of under-explored erotic capital, which is gaining increasing importance in today’s sexualised post-capitalist society and everyday relationships. On the other side of the same spectrum is a special segment of the programme dedicated to sex work. Namely, it has been estimated that per ten thousand inhabitants in Croatia there are twice as many sex workers than doctors. A society that secretly enjoys and exploits sex work, while at the same time moralising it, positions prostitution in a complex structure that intertwines economy, sex and gender, power, class and ‘choice’.
The programme brings together a range of perspectives united by the idea of liberating the often neglected, forbidden and repressed capital hidden within us – at the border of the private, the intimate and the public. Slovenian artist Mala Kline leads a 21-hours happening Dream Hostel Rijeka: Visions of Excess, Lea Culetto, also from Slovenia, presents her fashion brand and exhibition deflowered by Lea, American artists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens organise individual and group online counselling with Rijeka’s audience on sexuality and eroticism, Adrienne Truscott, also US based artist, gives her stand-up performance Asking for Itthat combines the uncombinable – comedy and rape, Dr. Kaouthar Darmoni from Tunisia / The Netherlands presents the concept of the FeminineCapital and leads a workshop on the art of being feminine, Nataša Rajković presents a performance The Seduction of Performing, curator Kyle Stephens from the US presents the thematic film programme from South America, Argentinian sex worker Pichon Reyna holds a workshop titled The Reflexive Power of Pleasure or What We Do With Our Bodies, while activist and publicist Vesna Kesić hosts a series of talks on exploatations, freedoms, coercions and manipulations of the body(ies) in public and media space. The only thing that remains after this intensive programme is to close it, very loudly, with erotic karaoke party.
