Gracing Her Space

A conversation with Monika Weiss about the physicality of music, secret societies of alternative artists, impossible conversations, the marriage of sorrow and beauty, the revolutionary potential of lamentation, performance as ecstatic fulfillment, and healing through collective experiences. Born in Warsaw/Poland, Monika Weiss is Polish-American artist based in New York City, practicing internationally. Historian Griselda Pollock writes, Weiss’ artworks “have long solicited our attention to historical events: forgotten, remembered, not yet mourned, or immemorial” employing an “aesthetically intense, audio-visual musicality”. Originally trained as a classical musician, Weiss creates music/film installations and outdoor public projects/performances, often performing herself or choreographing others, especially women, in a symbolic act of ‘unforgetting’ in response to sites of shared trauma. In 2018, the city of Dresden commissioned Weiss to create temporary public art project commemorating the liberation and destruction in 1945. In 2016, curator Robert Storr invited Weiss to participate in an international exhibition at Stavros Niarchos Foundation/Athens, alongside Laurie Anderson and Shirin Neshat. In 2012, city of Zielona Góra/Poland invited her to create a temporary lamentation project with local women, on the grounds of the former German concentration camp for Jewish women, Gruenberg, today ruined and forgotten. As part of The Met series Artists on Artworks, a 30-min. film premiered in 2021, in which Weiss shared her insights on the work of Francisco Goya and reflected on her own transdisciplinary practice that evokes ancient rituals of lamentation, performed in response to tragedy.

Listen to our conversation with Marta Jovanovic about healing through vulnerability, admitting both weakness and strength, discarding shame, enduring, having things to say, and finding places where your soul feels at home. Marta Jovanović (@martajmartajmartaj) is a performance artist and educator with a mission to promote and facilitate further progress of the discipline. Founder of the Performance Art Program at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, artist in residency at The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in 2017, Jovanović is also the subject of the multiple award-winning documentary “Born Just Now”, by the American director Robert Adanto. Her works, among which the most notable ones are “Pionirka”, “It is My Body”, “Love”, and “Motherhood”, are in important private and museum collections. The performance “BelgradeMermaid” opened the Belgrade Biennale in 2018, while its continuation “Mermaid’s Tale” became a performance in Virtual Reality the following year. Curator Kathy Battista wrote a survey of the artist’s early works titled “Marta Jovanovic: Performing the Self”, which was published by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of City University of New York, while in the book New York New Wave, Battista positions Jovanović among the most urgent New York City contemporary feminist artists.

Listen to ​​our conversation with Hera Naguib about stillness in poetry, becoming comfortable with not belonging, depending on yourself, connecting to your landscape, and staying close to your art in Episode 04 of The Being Body Podcast, “Concerns of the Imagination”. Hera Naguib is a Pakistani writer who was raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Toronto, Canada. She earned her M.Litt. in Literature in English from Beaconhouse National University, Pakistan and an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, New York. Hera holds a fellowship, an award, and recognition from the Fulbright Scholarship Program, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and The American Academy of Poets. She is a PhD candidate in English at Florida State University where she studies poetry, teaches literature, creative writing, and composition. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in New England Review, The Common, Poets.org, World Literature Today, DAWN, The News on Sunday, among others. She can be found at www.heranaguib.com or @HeraNaguib on Twitter. Hera lives between Tallahassee and Lahore.

A conversation with Amna Mawaz Khan about believing in processes over people, managing power imbalances in creative relationships, respecting imperfections in art, and exploring spaces between stillness and movement. The Being Body Podcast is a meditation on Art and Life. Through honest, respectful and contemplative conversation we aim to access a mental space of creative collaboration. This podcast pulsates amongst creatives who are seeking inspiration and purpose, and are willing to engage and listen to one another. The Being Body Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/thebeingbodypodcast/ House Ltd: https://www.instagram.com/house_limited/ http://www.houseltd.org

A conversation with Alina Akbar about being your own friend, living in different kinds of chaos, shedding pressures of curated identities, and enjoying silence together. The Being Body Podcast is a meditation on Art and Life. Through honest, respectful and contemplative conversation we aim to access a mental space of creative collaboration. This podcast pulsates amongst creatives who are seeking inspiration and purpose, and are willing to engage and listen to one another. The Being Body Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/thebeingbodypodcast/ House Ltd: https://www.instagram.com/house_limited/ http://www.houseltd.org/

A conversation with Ahsen Waheed about storytelling, walking unknown paths, the meditative power of music, the need to create, and the urge to scream. The Being Body Podcast is a meditation on Art and Life. Through honest, respectful and contemplative conversation we aim to access a mental space of creative collaboration. This podcast pulsates amongst creatives who are seeking inspiration and purpose, and are willing to engage and listen to one another. The Being Body Podcast: ​​https://www.instagram.com/thebeingbodypodcast/ House Ltd: https://www.instagram.com/house_limited/ http://www.houseltd.org/