... land*scapes

01.12.2025

Elly Clarke

In 2016, Elly Clarke and Vladimir Bjeličić presented an online/offline [drag/ged] lecture performance by multi-bodied drag queen #Sergina at Munich Academy of Fine Arts titled An Orgy of Algorithms and Other Desires and Distractions. Clarke was present in Munich, Bjeličić joined via Skype from Belgrade. Nine years later the artists revisit and reflect on this performance, as well as their ten year old [mostly online] collaboration. Bring your phones, your opinions and your divided attention. 

Elly Clarke is an artist & researcher interested in the performance and the burden (‘the drag’) of the physical body and object in a digitally mediated world. They work with analogue and digital photography, performance, music, curating and community-based projects and [the archive of] a multi-bodied drag queen called #Sergina, who over a 10-year period was played and shaped not only by Clarke but by others too - most significantly Belgrade-based artist, curator and gardner Vladimir Bjeličić. 

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land*scapes are memory – they forget neither colonialism nor the climate crisis, and they will also remember AI. Soil samples are not the only evidence of how human ideas and activities shape landscapes. If we learn to read them, we see more than forests, seas, mountains and idyllic nature. They are the result of attributions, interventions and power relations – and bear traces of colonialism, extractivism and ecological destruction. At the same time, they open up spaces for resistance, regeneration, care, diversity and creativity. They tell of borders and resistance, of care and displacement.

In our winter lecture series, we encounter one of these landscapes and artistic perspectives on climate justice each week. Methods and practices show how landscapes are shaped by language, perspectives and boundaries – and how different perceptions arise depending on the angle of view. How do we shape landscapes and how do they shape us? What needs to change in order to preserve the foundations of life? And what role can art play in this?

We invite you to become part of these land*scapes: to listen to them, feel them and change them creatively. Together, we will create a winter landscape full of knowledge, experiences and encounters across the degree programmes. The event will conclude with a cosy hot drink.

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upcoming:
08.12. material*scapes - mit bc architects
15.12. learn"scapes - mit new visions
12.01. care *scapes - mit Emma Holton
19.01. sound*scapes - mit Klanglandschaften
26.01. final *scapes session