Tender Intimacies

An event with artists and scholars about what happens when we allow ourselves to become tender and intimate with one another.

Tenderness, from the Proto-Indo-European root “-ten,-tan” originally means “to stretch, or to be stretched” and shares its root with tantra. This notion is at the heart of our most intimate moments but is also studied and explored by artists and scholars. During this event we will bring together such artists and scholars who contemplate what happens when we allow ourselves to become tender and intimate with one another. Like pillow talk moments, where boundaries become porous, voices soften, time slows down, and touch takes over.

What makes up this peculiar horizontal space, and could it be a space of healing trauma? What happens to our binary social constructs or our autonomous individualities, when we intersubjectively, intimately and consciously touch, stretch and merge with one another? And might these radical tender intimacies have the potential to critique or at least complicate dominant notions of sexuality?

The event was part of the PILAR ASAP Festival Sexual Feeling/Healing Edition and produced by Ohme. Tender Intimacies consisted of two parts: A live performance and a panel talk.

Live Performance

An intimate immersive experiences and performances at the Pilar Box. A retrospective of my tender sound, visual, and EEG-installation art: Lullaby in Yoni, Carvining out a Sonorous Space of Tenderness, Tender Rhythms and Melancholic Lullabies. With guest artist Neoza Goffin, performing her touch-based rituals. The performance invites the audience to co-create and explore the horizontal space of tenderness through sound, visuals, BCI-technology and the haptic. Produced by Ohme.

Video by: Adrien Golinvaux

Photographs by Willem Mevis

Panel Talk

Scholars and artists share the floor to exchange about their works, stretching the boundaries of sexuality and exploring our relationship to intimacy and tenderness. With Neoza Goffin (artist), Carla Besora (artist-researcher at Lili), and Stephanie Koziej (Artist-researcher and moderator).