PANEL DISCUSSION (EN)
INTIMACY IN TIMES OF DISTANCE

To be intimate can mean being erotically and spiritually connected to other bodies. Intimacy can also mean being connected with other persons, not necessarily in a sexual way, but feeling safe, comfortable, relaxed, free… We are intimate with lovers, friends, family, but also with ourselves.

Pleasure, especially sexual pleasure that is connected to an intimate experience, can be empowering, and so having spaces where one can be intimate is liberating. Spaces, architecture, and parks can offer certain intimacy through their inviting atmospheres as well as their anti-discriminatory politics. Many factors play a role in enabling and approaching intimacy, so, for example, in the case of sex or care work in the migration experience, intimacy might be understood differently than in other context.

What role do exotisation and power dynamics play in terms of intimacy for migrants in “post”-colonial societies? What has feminist porn, post-porn, sex positive anti-exploitative pornography brought or changed in regards to our understanding of intimacy and space?

In times of pandemic, and after new definitions of what intimacy signifies, how has body contact been redefined? How much is the minimum proximity and how much is too much…? And lastly, considering distribution and accessibility to tests and vaccines, who can afford to take more risks to be intimate, and who can not, depending on which side of the globe they are?

GUESTS:
Maque Pereyra is a Berlin based multidisciplinary artist, psychologist and pleasure/spiritual activist. In 2018 she finished the MA SoDA program at HZT in Berlin. The focus of her work is on healing, empowerment through pleasure and spiritual activism, decolonial/cuir aesthetics-practices and knowledge production/reflection with and from the body.

Barbara Rothmüller (Dr.) works as Sociologist at the Faculty of Psychology Sigmund Freud at the University of Vienna. She leads the project "Intimacy, Sexuality and Solidarity in the Covid-19 Pandemic" and collaborates with the FWF-Project "The Psychological is Political: A Recent History of Feminist Psychology in Vienna".

Leticia Carneiro was born in Brazil and she has a degree in Law and a MA in Philosophy of law. She has been living in Austria for almost 4 years and has been working in the sex&work department at maiz for a little more than 2 years. She is busy every day learning how to unlearn and to question.

iki yos piña narváez funes: Parchita, no binarix, Afrocaribeñx, diaspóricx-transfronterizx. Artist, performer, writer and drawer. Iky researches from within her/their body topics related to Black Caribbean studies, Black radical thought, and Black time. Iky is part of the artistic collective Ayllu.

Moderation
Lia Kastiyo-Spinósa is an editor, writer, artist and organizer. She was born in the Caribbean region and migrated at a young age to the South of the continent where she encountered the reality of being an "other". In 2016, Lia graduated in Publishing from the University of Buenos Aires. Since 2018 she has lived in Vienna while studying her second degree at the Academy of Fine Arts. She coordinates and is part of the editorial team of Migrazine.

 Fine Arts in Vienna.