Through readings, screenings, and discussions, we will focus on historical moments when archival gaps, erasure tactics, or the failure of the cultural apparatus to fully interpellate its subjects created openings for fabulators to project their desires and imagine selves and worlds that could have been.
“Fabulous” is a term that has long been associated with being extraordinary, eccentric, flamboyant, stylish and more often than not “queer.” While it has acquired various meanings over the years, whether as a celebratory term within queer communities or a derogatory homophobic insult, particularly referring to gay men; its etymology also signals a departure from dominant regimes of truth, a triumph of the imagination, and a commitment to storytelling as a world-building practice.
In this participatory, discussion-based, interdisciplinary six-week workshop, we will examine the history and applications of “fabulation” as a critical, political, and aesthetic practice, tracing its development from its early use in literary theory to its adaptations by Black scholars, feminist writers, and queer artists as a methodology that emerges precisely where archives are broken, traces are erased, dissident voices are structurally excluded, and futures are foreclosed. Far from falsehood or escapism, fabulation has the potential to question the existing order of the world, challenge stable notions of identities and imagine alternative pasts, presents, and futures.
Through readings, screenings, and discussions, we will focus on historical moments when archival gaps, erasure tactics, or the failure of the cultural apparatus to fully interpellate its subjects created openings for fabulators to project their desires and imagine selves and worlds that could have been. Is it possible to think of the fabulator in that context as both a product of and a traitor to the dominant narratives, aesthetics, technologies, and infrastructures that constitute a hegemonic cultural sphere, and which actively seek to silence dissenting voices and obliterate minoritarian subjects? To what extent might the very ecosystems of political power and cultural production contain within them the tools for their own subversion?
Mohammad Shawky Hassan is an Egyptian filmmaker, writer, and video artist living and working in Berlin. His video And on a Different Note was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York as part of its permanent collection, and his feature-length film Shall I Compare You to a Summer's Day? premiered at the Berlinale Forum. He has lectured at Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the German University in Cairo, and Humboldt University’s Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies.
The workshop is open to artists, writers, researchers, and others with an interest in and/or experience with the subject matter. Sessions will take place onTuesdays and Thursdays from 4:00 to 7:00 pm from September 1st till September 24th.
The workshop will be held in English.
