Alumni Talk: Men Care - Unlearning Manhood?

11.30
Men Care - unlearning manhood?
Alumni Talk at Social Design Studio

• Die Angewandte
  Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7, 1030 Wien

The talk will delve into the personal process and motivation that led, Enrico Tomassini, to develop the artistic research and curatorial format Men Care - Unlearning Manhood? as a relational workshop, public programme and exhibitionary format unfolding in moments of collective enquiry and performativity. The action-research idea started to take shape as a process of critical self-reflection and as a reaction to the surge of domestic violence emerged during the pandemic. Inspired by the feminist statement: “the private is political”, Enrico started exploring the idea of interdependence as a logic opposed to the logic of dependency and independence in his everyday life. Having to reconfigure his way of inhabiting the domestic, his habits, costumes, models as a new child bearer, as a father, he felt the urgency of envisioning spaces where traditional forms and models of masculinity could be contested, fabulated and reimagined. The urgency to imagine Masculinity, out of the box, is cultivated by engaging, individually and collectively, with topics of men’s violence, anger and privilege, both in the domestic and public space. The project aims to debunk dominant narratives and societal norms linked to masculine performativity, stereotypes and societal norms, by “not talking of ourselves” but “starting from ourselves”.

BIO:

Enrico Tomassini
DAD, Urban Researcher, Curator, Artist - Portfolio & CV
linkklimt@gmail.com , +393343507146

Based in Florence, he trained on a human, academic and professional level in Italy, South Africa, Hungary, Austria, the Balkan region, Cuba. Passionate about urban territories, lived and conceived spaces, social dynamics and condition of privilege has been the lifeblood for his projects that he developed in the social contexts he crossed. He firmly believes that art can shape and disrupt commonly held assumptions about one another and bring about new understandings and imaginations of our own lived reality. With a background in architecture, social sciences, design, public arts, urban studies, film direction and the curatorial, my work, tools and approaches range in between visual research, 1:1 architectural public interventions, open-scripted narratives, performative exhibitions/lectures, performance, applied research traveling artistic and editorial practices. Among others founder, curator and ideator of the Creative Europe Cultural Cooperation Project “Some Call Us Balkans”.