Together with ComFor’s annual conference 2018 one can visit three different exhibitions:
In the premises of the COPT-building – which is also the location of the conference – there will be the possibility to see scientific posters on the subject of Comics and Disability Studies that have been designed by students of the Department of Media Culture and Theatre. During the summer term the students attended the B.A.-seminar Comics and Disability Studies that was taught by Véronique Sina. The posters deal with different narrative and visual strategies of discursive (re-)productions of dis/ability in the medium of comics.
The Artistic Lecture My Noose Around That Pretty’s Neck by Philip Crawford will be accompanied by selected works by the artist that will also be displayed in the premises of the COPT-building. Crawford decribes his artistic work as follows: “One of the organizing elements of my artistic practice is the concept of heroism. The hero serves as a narrative embodiment for an individual or community. It is both an iconic reflection of shared values and a representation of their history and self-defined purpose. The heroic provides a unique way to access processes of identity formation. Through my practice, I explore historical conceptions of the heroic and its capacity to foment rhetorics of difference and mask technologies of power. Superheroic tales–stories of exceptional humanity, morality, ability like those found in comic books and memoirs (also music, movies, video games and self-help books)–hold particular interest. While the images and stories are important resources, so are the histories of the creators, media companies and audiences that produced them. Narratives constructed in these stories often have traceable and definable origins within contemporaneous communities. Throughout my work there is an attempt at what Saidiya Hartman calls critical fabulation. Heroic surrogacy and embodiment become key frameworks in this effort. Including visualizations of heroic and superheroic narratives from popular media alongside references to the pleasures and pains of everyday life is part of an effort to combine fictions; critically binding the individual, institutional, historical and popular fabulations that instruct the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
You can read more about Philip Crawford’s recent projects at philipac.com
Moreover, there will be the exhibition “SuperQueeroes. Unsere LGBTI*-Comic-Held_innen”, which was designed in 2016 by the Schwules Museum Berlin and shown with great success. For the first time, queer comic heroes of various kinds were thematized in the German museum world. As part of the ComFor annual conference, the exhibition was brought to Cologne and reworked for the university by students as part of a seminar that was taught by Christine Gundermann. The exhibition can be visited from 11 July to September 20 in the foyer of the Philosophikum of the University of Cologne. Vernissage is on the 11th of July from 12 o’clock, opening with a talk by and about comic artist Ralf König . Subsequently, the exhibition will be opened by Dr. Kevin Clarke, curator of the Schwules Museum Berlin.
Vernissage, 11th July 2018:
12-13.30h | Atrium of the Philosophikum: Talk by the comics artist Ralf König and subsequent discussion
13.30h | In front of the Examinations Office: Official opening of the exhibition (guest: Kevin Clarke)
Venue:
Exhibition: “Comics and Disability Studies”
as well as Philip Crawford: My Noose Around That Pretty’s Neck
University of Cologne
COPT-Building (Building No. 315)
Rooms H230, S231-S233
Luxemburger Str. 90 | 50939 Cologne
This interactive map offers an overview over the buildings and facilities of the University of Cologne: https://lageplan.uni-koeln.de/#!315
Exhibition: “SuperQueeroes. Unsere LGBTI*-Comic-Held_innen”
University of Cologne
Philosophikum (Building 103)
Universitätsstraße 41 | 50923 Cologne
This interactive map offers an overview over the buildings and facilities of the University of Cologne: https://lageplan.uni-koeln.de/#!103
Contact:
Conception
Christine Gundermann (University of Cologne | Department of History)
Nina Heindl (University of Cologne | a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne)
Véronique Sina (University of Cologne | Department of Media Culture and Theatre)
Conference organisation
Nina Heindl (University of Cologne | a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne)
Véronique Sina (University of Cologne | Department of Media Culture and Theatre)
The conference organisers are supported by
Bettina Begner, Stephan Böhm, Jan Harms, Yasmin Neuhaus, Anja Pflugfelder, Michaele Pollich, Jacqueline Rehse, Lukas Respondek, Alina Valjent, Elsa Weiland and Philin Zwirner
Exhibition organisation
Organisation of the exhibition “Comics and Disability Studies”:
Véronique Sina (University of Cologne | Department of Media Culture and Theatre)
Organisation of the exhibition “SuperQueeroes. Unsere LGBTI*-Comic-Held_innen”:
Christine Gundermann (University of Cologne | Department of History)