to touch text with clay
Workshop by Xava Mikosch & Jasemin Khaleli
The workshop, to touch text with clay, explores the intersection of creative writing, performance, and sculpting. Over three hours, participants will engage in introspective and collective exercises, focusing on the hands as tools for expression.
Through exploring the textures and stories connected to our hands, we will reflect on how they connect pen, paper, text, and clay. The goal is to move beyond traditional writing, using bodily, intuitive approaches to word-finding, and translating them into shapes and characters through clay.
The emphasis is on experimentation rather than a finished product, seeing both words and clay as fluid and ever-changing forms. Participants will engage in exercises blending somatic practice, free writing, and clay shaping, inspired by the works of artists and writers like Anohni, Audre Lorde, and Maggie Nelson. No prior experience with pottery or writing is needed—just a willingness to explore through touch and creativity.
REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED** send us an email to sayhi@improperwalls.com to reserve your place as we have limited capacity.
Xava (they/them) is a filmmaker, creative writer and performer. In practice, they have been working with different media such as interactive devices, video, sound, text and performance. Within that, challenging, interacting and interfering with the public have been important artistic strategies in all of those approaches.
Eversince, they have been working with their performance collective mal hans mal franz while deepening their own performative practice through a variety of workshops, performances and classes in Vienna, Porto, Singapore and Stockholm. In Summer 2023, they were part of the international dance-WEB program at the ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival and are currently working on their first performance project centered around trans*futuristic tools that will premiere at steirischer herbst in 2024.
Jasemin (she/her) is a researcher, ceramicist and performer, working with text, sound and sculpture. Exploring questions of systemic and institutionalized violence through personal trajectories and collective reflections, Jasemin practices decolonial and queer methodologies and sensual ethnography. She is currently working within the scope of the ÆSR Applied/Experimental Sound Research Lab (ÖAW) and completing the Critical Studies program at the Academy of Fine Arts; she also forms part of the Semmelweisklinik Ceramics Studio as well as Vienna’s Schmusechor as a performer. Her work has been awarded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, GAIN Gender and Agency prize and was featured by Wienwoche Festival, Semmelweisklinik, Garage Grande and CTM Festival for Adventurous Music Berlin, among others.
