Conflicts are everywhere and everyday experiences. They are unavoidable when living together in societies marked by multiple differences, e.g. origin and cultural upbringing, gender, class, religion, capabilities, opinions, interest, values. However, conflict does not have to be a problem – what we need are new forms of living with conflict, rather than hoping for a social life that is free of conflict.

Caring for Conflict operates with the notion of Konfliktkulturen (cultures of conflict) to grapple with conflicts as thresholds and zones of contact between separated worlds. Cultures of conflict, we would like to propose, operate within the breaks and from and cracks in the divisions, thus creating modes and occasions for changing social structures and power relations. In their different situatedness, people (and other life forms) embody multiple forms of knowing and being in conflict. Resistant, emancipatory youth and counter cultures are based in such knowledges and provide inspirations for Caring for Conflict. Drawing from queer forms of relationality and feminist concepts of care, the project asks how to un_learn from and with each other, how to combine our different experiences into shared practices. Practices as tools for being in trouble together, for dealing with the damages done and for dismantling the violences of ‘normality’.

Caring for Conflict was a cultural education project for those aged 12-27. We were collaborating with schools and youth clubs, some focusing explictly on feminist, queer, and anti-racist empowerment, all of them having a clear understanding about intersecting differences and power relations. Collaboration of district and institut for queer theory funded by Berliner Projektsfonds Kulturelle Bildung. The presentation took place at Klirrrrr Festival, in 2018 and 2019 @ District Berlin.

More Info: www.caring-for-conflict.de

Artistic Co-Direction and Curation
Suza Husse, Nuray Demir, Anika Lachnitt, Nino Halka, Antke Engel

Illustrations
elboum

Photos
©Emma Haugh