GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK): FLINTA* LITERATURE NIGHT #7

This event explores metamorphosis and coming out across different areas of life: the expression of a queer identity; the process of gender transition or acquiring a new body through reconstructive surgery; and the journey from the first walls of the womb, to the bedroom walls of a young girl shaped by the promises of the West, to the wall that fell in Germany in 1989. How does literature help writers and readers imagine new narratives of self-realization? What are the benefits—but also the risks—of coming out, and what old barriers and new challenges arise in the process? What happens when people cross boundaries and claim the freedom to write a new future?

Featuring Joanna Kusiak, Masha Sapizhak, Asta Tall, and Vanessa Gunesch. Moderated by Cemre Nur Öztürk.

Languages: German and English.

GIRL, SHOW ME THAT BODY (OF WORK) is a project by FLINTA*Literatur, Berlin’s platform for migrant and exiled women artists, in cooperation with Lettrétage, funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, recommended by The Reader Berlin, and presented by tipBerlin and taz.

Web: https://flintaliteratur.de/de

Contact: kontakt@flintaliteratur.de

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flintaliteratur/

Vanessa Badescu (Vanessa Gunesch) is a Romanian-German writer and filmmaker. Her films screen at national and international festivals and are distributed on streaming platforms. In her work, she examines the interconnections between capitalism, migration, and the female body within sociopolitical spaces of control and desire.

Joanna Kusiak writes poetry and creative nonfiction while also working as a social scientist at the University of Cambridge. Her book *Radically Legal: Berlin Constitutes the Future* emerged from telling the story of her research—on Berlin’s housing struggles—through her poetic voice. It won the $100K Nine Dots Prize for thinking (and writing) “outside the box” about contemporary social challenges. She is currently compiling her first poetry collection.

Masha Sapizhak is a theater maker, performance artist, and theater educator. In her artistic work, Masha explores practices of resistance, solidarity, and empowerment from a feminist perspective. She works in a multidisciplinary manner and incorporates methods from drama and documentary theater, contemporary dance, digital media, performative approaches, participatory practices, and gamification into her projects, while also viewing humor as a powerful tool. In Germany, she has worked with the English Theater Berlin, Gorki Theater, Theater Strahl, Hellerau, Ballhaus Prinzenallee, and Theater an der Parkaue, among others.

Asta Tall is a Senegalese-American poet currently based in Berlin. She explores the themes of patriarchy, womanhood, and heritage. She does so through a personal lens, connecting subjective experiences or observations to broader issues. This gives her work a raw and intimate quality that is evident in her performances.