as part of Re_Generation

19.04. – 01.07.2023

Re_Generation is a festival for pleasure, solidarity & healing. International artists, activists, and scientists will gather at the FFT for twelve days to introduce and try out practices that answer to a world that is exhausted in so many ways.

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Annick Kleizen

regeneration medicine: a conversation

Talk Talks & Workshops Social/Urban Movements

The stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) points at fertile soil and makes a rich compost for soil that is depleted. When ingested as tea, soup or tincture, nettle supports the human body’s processes to regain energy and strength. For some people, the nettle’s medicine also lies in its sting: it alleviates pain by hurting a bit. When touching the nettle’s hairy leaves, its tiny needles inject histamine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and formic acid (among other chemicals), and the human skin reacts by swelling and itching sharply. Blood rushes to the irritated area and warms it, and after a while, the burning feeling fades.
Artist Annick Kleizen describe their experience with this plant as follows:

I first realised I wasn’t bothered by the sting when gathering nettles for spring soup, then found myself seeking out the sting at moments when it was hard to connect to my body. In those moments, nettle (re)actives my capacity to feel. Starting from this image of the nettle as a sensitising medicine, I propose to think about regeneration in ways that are both embodied and relational. What regenerational medicine lies in the practices that are gathered? How do they tend to what hurts? What liberatory potential gets activated? What medicine do we hold between us?”

A conversation with Eroca Nicols, Mithu Sanyal, Neha Spellfish and Siegmar Zacharias.

cast

Annick Kleizen is an independent curator. Over the last 10+ years, they have cultivated an extensive practice of collaboration with artists and choreographers in a variety of supporting and co-developing roles: ranging from researching to editing, to co-conspiring, performing, producing and writing. These different roles are all threaded through with a desire to explore friendship and long-term conversations as a possibility to study otherwise.

credits

Re_Generation receives support from Kunststiftung NRW and from the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media, as part of the Alliance of International Production Houses. In cooperation with Cheers for Fears.