Queer Goddexes & Speculative Scripts
(creating queer goddexes with collage drawings with natural materials, through movement and guided ritual)
workshop with Ayshe-Mira Yashin & Byuka aka Fortune Tailed Beast
Saturday 18 January, 2-6 PM
Mimosa House, E20 1AP
Join us for a day workshop on creating queer goddexes through drawing & collage-making with organic materials. You will also be guided through a ritual journey involving movement, visualisation & breathwork, where you will be shown how to make your own personal ‘sacred script’ of intentions that you can use to adorn your goddex.
This workshop is inspired by the ancient Neolithic civilisation of Cucuteni-Trypillia (from the areas of present-day Romania, Ukraine and Moldova) and the magnificent clay deity figurines, pottery and altars they left behind. The Cucuteni-Trypillia are also known for cyclically burning their settlements every 60-80 years, which is why the area they occupied is known as ‘The Burned House Horizon’. From this starting point, we will connect to land and history via a communal ritual as a queer world-building and kinship-making practice, asking ourselves what it means to become (and already be) future ancestors inhabiting this Earth.
We want to reclaim the goddess from the enforced rigidity of the gender binary & biological essentialism present in both spiritual practices & anthropological research.
For this reason, we will explore the nonbinary divine already present in different times and cultures and welcome the co-creation of goddexes that reflect a large spectrum of gender, sexual & spiritual expressions. Through body-mapping & sensorial connection, we will explore how our bodies are living and breathing archives that carry ancestral grief, prayers and blessings. This will allow us to connect to our collective power of choosing to speak to the future directly, by creating intentional archaeological remains.
Our drawings of queer deities will be inspired by our bodies and by how movement, senses and emotion shape them. We will therefore create representations of queer & trans myths, with the visual stories we wish to leave behind as future ancestors. We will be looking at how queer artists have used goddex archetypes to explore the political and/or mythological self. Finally, we will respond to guided ritual journeys by creating visual representations of the ‘body as earth’, drawing and collaging with organic materials such as dried plants and natural pigments.
The workshop is part of the exhibition ‘Burned House Horizon’, open at Mimosa House from 17 January to 9 February 2025.
Workshop schedule:
Arrival & circle sharing
Somatic practice with meditation, dance & embodiment prompts
Writing/drawing
Break
Drawing/collage goddex creation
Collective breathing for closing
Access:
No previous experience is necessary in drawing or ritual/somatic work.
All the guidance will be shared in the form of invitations, to be adapted by each participant according to their access needs & felt sense of what is right for them at that moment in time.
The movement parts are fully accessible to people with mobility issues and can be done either standing, sitting or laying down, as needed.
You are encouraged to take breaks whenever you need. You can bring your stim toys, mobility aids, plushies, and whatever else helps you navigate the space and helps you feel taken care of.
Contact Giulia at giulia.casalini@cuntemporary.org for further workshop questions or requests.
Venue accessibility:
Mimosa House strives to provide a physical environment accessible to all visitors. This includes:
Offering ground-level, step-free access.
Offering elevator access to the first floor.
Providing accessible restrooms for all genders.
Providing chairs or other forms of seating.
Welcoming assistive animals.
Contact Kaia at kaia@mimosahouse.co.uk for any additional venue access needs.