Sex Ecologies. To be in love means to be worldly
A digital lecture by Katrine Elise Pedersen and Kaja Grefslie Waagen.
In this talk, Katrine Elise Pedersen and Kaja Grefslie Waagen will discuss the research, the exhibition and book, and the process behind Sex Ecologies, a collaborative project developed by Kunsthall Trondheim and The Seed Box, with a public program curated by RAW Material Company.
Sex Ecologies explores gender, sex, and sexuality in the context of ecology. The project is founded in the belief that environmental and social justice go hand in hand. Through a transdisciplinary approach, the exhibition critiques understandings of nature, gender, sexuality, and race that attempt to objectify and naturalize them. For example, “laws against nature” used to criminalize queer sexuality, and in many places still do. These norms are justified through evolutionary narratives exclusively permitting heterosexual reproduction. Everything that does not fit this norm is considered unhealthy, polluted, or “degenerate.” These norms have proven detrimental to humans and to the thing we call nature alike.
Sex Ecologies presented newly commissioned works by nine artists made specifically for the exhibition. The artists participated in regular online meetings to workshop their artworks with the exhibition curators and with each other. The process was accompanied by an advisory board for cross-pollination composed of researchers from disciplines like gender studies, environmental humanities, communications, and Indigenous studies. Sex Ecologies highlighted the emancipatory role of pleasure and affect beyond the human in our current ecological era, where nature is far from natural. It included the biological, the technological, the social, and the political. In Sex Ecologies, desire, eros, and care dance with flesh, worms, and spirits.
Follow this link to attend the lecture.
Katrine Elise Pedersen and Kaja Grefslie Waagen were part of the curatorial team of Sex Ecologies with Prerna Bishnoi, Carl Martin Faurby, with Katja Aglert (The Seed Box) and Stefanie Hessler (Kunsthall Trondheim) as project leaders.
Katrine Elise Pedersen (1988) is an art historian and curator based in Trondheim, Norway. She earned her MA in Art History at the University of Oslo (UiO). Pedersen is curator and producer at Kunsthall Trondheim. Her curatorial practice has been oriented towards alternative realities, spiritualities, and knowledge systems as well as histories which seemingly have not been included in the main strains of official world narratives. In September 2022, she is curating a solo exhibition with Susanne M. Winterling at Kunsthall Trondheim. Recent curatorial projects include “Unweaving the binary code – Hannah Ryggen Triennale” (2022) curated together with Stefanie Hessler, ”Korakrit Arunanondchai: Songs for dying” (2021) and “Pia Arke: Wonderland” (2019). Pedersen is a member of the editorial board of The Norwegian Art Year Book (2020-2023) and Vice Chair of The Norwegian Association of Curators (2021-2023).
Kaja Grefslie Waagen (1991) is an art historian and curator based in Trondheim, Norway. She has earned degrees in Psychology and Art History at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Waagen is Assistant Curator and Communication Coordinator at Kunsthall Trondheim. In June 2022, Waagen is curating a solo project exhibition with the Norwegian artist Matilde Westavik Guastad at Kunsthall Trondheim. Recent curatorial projects include “Karin Aurora Lindell: Teppefall” (2022), and “Frida Orupabo: How did you feel when you come out of the wilderness” (2021) curated together with Stefanie Hessler.