MINDBLOWERS @ PRÓXIMAMENTE

What happens to stories that are not allowed to be told? To memories that are suppressed? Or to knowledge that has never been considered valuable?In this edition of Mindblowers, VUB and KVS bring together artists and researchers from Belgium and Latin America around the theme of ghost memory: stories, people and knowledge that have been forgotten, erased or pushed to the margins, yet have never completely disappeared.Through personal stories, artistic projects and academic research, the speakers explore what endures when people are forced to flee, when histories are forgotten, or when certain voices remain unheard. You will hear about Syrian journalists continuing their work in exile, a woman who was abducted as a baby during the Argentine dictatorship, forms of knowledge that have been pushed to the margins for generations, and artists imagining alternative narratives about the past and the future.Expect an evening of art, research and personal testimonies in which ghost memories take shape: things that seemed forgotten, yet never truly disappeared.With contributions by Claudix Vanesix, Claudia Poblete, Yazan Badran, Adriana Moreno Cely and Laura Vandewynckel. Speakers Yazan Badran is a lecturer and researcher at VUB. For Mindblowers, he draws on his research with Syrian journalists living in exile in Istanbul. Their story shows how knowledge, language and journalistic practices continue to exist when people are forced to leave their country. Through his research on media, politics and diasporic communities, he explores who is recognized as a legitimate knowledge holder and how stories, memories and experiences can cross borders without being lost.Adriana Moreno Cely is an activist, researcher and lecturer at VUB. During Mindblowers, she presents her lecture-performance PULPO. Using the octopus as a metaphor, she explores how colonial ideas about race, knowledge, progress and development continue to shape our societies today. Through storytelling, personal experience and critical reflection, she examines which forms of knowledge are recognized and which are systematically pushed to the margins.Laura Vandewynckel is a filmmaker, theatre maker and researcher. During Mindblowers, she draws on her project Let the Sea Take Away All Evil, set on the Brazilian island of Itaparica. Together with local artists and residents, she explores how hopes for change, progress and a better future take shape through stories, rituals and collective imagination. Her work examines how communities respond to social change and how stories help make sense of both the past and the future.PerformancesXenocene: A Manifesto in MotionClaudix Vanesix will share a lecture performance called Xenocene: A Manifesto in Motion."Xenocene" challenges human dominance over meaning by juxtaposing human “reality” with the "xenoreality" produced by an AI system. Is the world we perceive the only one that exists? Or merely one perspective among many, entangled in a post-human ontology where non-human intelligences also claim agency? ClaudiaClaudia by La Conquesta del Pol Sud is the second part of the trilogy exploring the relationship between history and identity through the story of Claudia Poblete.Claudia Victoria Poblete Hlaczik lives in Buenos Aires, works as an IT technician and is passionate about science fiction. Claudia leads a “normal” life, but behind this appearance lies an extraordinary life story. She grew up immersed in the values of a military environment, until, at the age of 21, she discovered that her biological parents were 'desaparecidos' (people who were secretly arrested, tortured and murdered under a military dictatorship) and that the life she had known was fabricated.Her case led to an important turning point in Argentina because it meant the beginning of the end of the military leadership’s impunity. Claudia’s life experience, which is communicated by herself on stage, is the primary material this theatrical documentary is based on. What do some individuals’ experiences have to do with us? What is the meaning of words like revolution, memory, and education today?