Lecture-performance on anti-Muslim racism and plural futures

Lecture-Performance Hurra Horeyya02.0!

When?

Wednesday 29.04.2026

6.15pm–7.45pm

Where?

University of Bern

Forschungspool Walter Benjamin Kolleg, Muesmattstrasse 45, 3012 Bern

Lecture-Performance

In their lecture performance “Hurra Horeyya 02.0!”, Hannan Salamat and Donya Speaks confront the absurdity of cultural ascriptions. Through honesty and humor, text and body, as well as theory and experience, they open up spaces for ambivalence and contradiction. Anti-Muslim racism serves as both a starting point and a conceptual lens for an artistic engagement with plural democracy, belonging, and in-betweenness.

Public Discussion

In recent years, Swiss performing arts institutions have faced increasing challenges from artist-activists who denounce persistent exclusions from the stage. Five years after the adoption of the popular initiative banning face coverings in public spaces, their critique addresses microaggressions and forms of censorship in the cultural field. This public discussion examines how structural racism and censorship shape which bodies are granted access to the stage and the ways these bodies are perceived. It explores how different forms of discrimination—such as anti-Muslim and anti-Black racism, sexism, and homophobia—intersect within the Swiss performing arts landscape. The discussion further highlights performative gestures that propose alternative imaginaries and plural futures, including Muslim and Black futurisms.

Part of a serie-lectures at the Institute Middle East and Muslim Societies

Hurreya_GSAH_FS26_Flyer.pdf

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