Interview with COVEN textur
The sex-positive transdisciplinary collective COVEN Berlin is a blend of artists, authors, and dancers. Functioning as both a platform and network, the members address relevant topics, such as feminism, love, gender and sexuality, within the context of art. Alongside the online magazine they organise exhibitions and events, set up as comfortable spaces for interaction and exchange. Recent shows include the exhibition LUCKY at nGbK in Berlin and Bedtime at Municipal Gallery Arsenal in Poznań, Poland curated by Zofia Nierodzińska and made in collaboration with Polish collective Dziewczy ństwo. What does it take to work together as a collective focused on such topics? What role do taboos play in this context? Platform textur asked the collective to share their experiences in the arts, from the challenges of discussing body politics to their approaches for raising these topics for discussion.
In what ways does COVEN col-
How do you position yourself as a sex-positive
lective function as a so-called
transdisciplinary genderbender collective? For ex-
open sphere? (i.e. who gets
ample, what kind of communications, word usage
involved, what is your reach,
and phrasing do you consider important in work-
and in which ways do you
ing as a curator or artist on the topics of feminism,
operate inside and outside of
love, gender, sexuality and art?
the art sphere?) We don’t have hard rules about word usage or The seven-ish members of
phrasing, aside from being respectful to each other
COVEN’s core group each have
and to the folks we work with. The politics of our
ties to different communi-
times evolve quickly, and given our interest and
ties around Berlin (art, dance,
commitment to queer intersectional feminism, we
porn, etc.), and for a long time
try to remain open to new information and ideas.
COVEN’s reach was dictated by
This means we make an effort to stay not only
these networks. Our shows had
informed but curious and open. This means that we
no funding and for the most
do our best to check in with each other and process
part the artists were people
things affectively and emotionally. This means that
we knew or who knew us. We were able to enlarge our sphere when LUCKY was elected for nGbK in 2018, and given that the show dealt with notions of privilege, we considered how we could strike a balance between thanking our commuInga Zimprich (Feministische Gesundheitsrecherchegruppe), ‘Prüfung der Versicherungspflicht dem KSVG’ (An Inquiry into KSK), installation view at COVEN, 2018, photo: Anastasia Muna Anna Uddenberg, ‘Focus #2’ and ‘Focus #1’, 2018, photo: Judy Landkammer
nity for years of free labor by sharing this paid opportunity, and bringing in wellknown artists whose work we admire. We sent a call to our network asking them to respond to LUCKY’s concept, which was a way to give priority to ‘our’ artists, while leaving room for us to invite more established ones too. As a rule of thumb though, and this is most visible with the online magazine where we are usually enthusiastic to publish people’s work, we are always open to submissions and proposals.