© Exhibition view ‘Eleanor Antin: A Retrospective’, Mudam Luxembourg. Photo: Mareike Tocha © Mudam Luxembourg
What does it mean to play with identities, create alter egos, or step into someone else’s shoes, as Eleanor Antin did in her work? How do ideas like gender, culture, or profession shape who we are?
This workshop seeks to equip its participants with key concepts from feminist, gender and queer theory, allowing them to analyse and understand art from a new perspective.
The activity is composed of three parts: we will begin with a theoretical - but nonetheless interactive - introduction, followed by a dive in the galleries of Antin’s exhibition to apply the tools we learnt in the first part. Finally, we step into practice, exploring the representation and expression of identity through the medium of collage.
Together, these three parts will allow us to delve into a variety of questions about our gendered existences, experiences, and expressions. What are the different channels we can access to perform different parts of our identities. What is the role of art in this process?
We will learn that gender and other systems of social hierarchy are everywhere. They condition the very ways in which we interpret and experience the world around us. Art then acts as a strategy, not only to reflect social reality, but to co-create it as well. This opens up a space for creative explorations and imaginings of different, more just futures.
Biographies:
Gabrielle Antar (she/her) is a Luxembourgish-Lebanese writer who has spent most of her life in Lebanon. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Studies and a Master’s degree in Gender Studies. Her academic work focused on drag performance as a form of resistance in Lebanon, exploring how queerness can be a powerful tool for imagining and creating social change. Her work is grounded in a transnational, decolonial, and queer feminist perspective.
Before becoming more involved in grassroots collectives in Luxembourg, Gabrielle worked as a journalist. Today, her practice sits at the intersection of creativity and activism. Through writing, poetry, and multidisciplinary expression, she seeks to provoke critical thought and deepen political awareness. Guided by the belief that both the personal and the communal are political, she founded déi aner – an alternative media platform that creates space for critical dialogue, uplifts underrepresented voices, and supports a more just, creative, and community-driven cultural landscape in Luxembourg.
Ella Chambers holds an undergraduate degree in Social Anthropology, and a master's degree in Gender Studies. She is currently working as the project manager of Luxembourg’s feminist library CID Fraen an Gender. In this role, and throughout her studies, she has gathered significant expertise on national and international gender politics. Her academic work is primarily an exploration of the ways in which social, political, and economic contexts influence sex and sexuality. Most recently this has resulted in a study of anti-gender discourse and its opponents in Luxembourg and the particular visions they conjure of the nation-state. Looking to translate theoretical knowledge into concrete action and making it more accessible, she organises workshops and discussion rounds, and engages in journalistic writing. She is also one of the hosts of the Luxembourgish sex education radio show and podcast “Méi Wéi Sex”. Her work here is guided by the strong belief that comprehensive, intersectional sex education is a requirement for a society based in social justice.
After the Event
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