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26-27 February, dis:connected histories

Performance, representation, and display

The concept of dis:connected histories challenges traditional narratives and the limitations of global history, both internationally and locally, by foregrounding the asymmetries of power and ruptures that have shaped it. Dis:connected histories underscore the need for diverse temporalities, epistemologies and sociopolitical contexts to engage with colonial, postcolonial and decolonial histories that have shaped “planetarity” (Spivak 2015). The lens of dis:connected histories is a critical tool for engaging with marginalised and/or excluded subjects, voices and histories that would otherwise not be considered in historical trajectories. This approach attunes us to elements that would otherwise be absent, fragmented or non-linear. By centring performance, representation and display in dis:connected histories, it enables us to move beyond analyses of hegemonic definition and status to consider the political and social-discursive forces that construct these practices. We attend to dis:connected histories in diverse historic and contemporary artistic practices from theatre to fine art, in cultural institutions like museums and in other institutional formations that might emerge in commercial and digitised spaces.

Emerging from discussions across the fields of art history, communication studies, and theatre history, we draw from our respective backgrounds with the intention of initiating an interdisciplinary conversation between artists and researchers addressing culture and migration. This focus reflects our respective projects on Brecht’s legacies in German theatre as they relate to global histories of migration and decolonization, and the expansion of community-initiated diaspora museums in North America. We foreground this topic of migration, as well as related themes like diaspora, as significant elements of dis:connected histories, and site where absences, fragments and non-linear narratives are particularly prominent.

 

The workshop discussions will focus on the following questions:

  • In which ways and modes does your work connect to dis:connected histories? Does the approach of dis:connected histories enable a discourse that a national (or global) context does (or will) not provide? How does this lens allow for new connections or insights?
  • How can we render a concept for dis:connected histories that incorporates epistemological justice (Bhambra 2021)?
  • Cultural infrastructures encompass formal initiatives, like policies, institutions, and digital platforms, as well as informal ventures that are more ad hoc but nonetheless play a vital role in community. How do these infrastructural dynamics manifest in your work? Does your work surface initiatives or models that offer a means to rethink hegemonic infrastructures?
  • How do we document/archive dis:connected histories, without reproducing colonial performative representation and display?
  • How does dis:connected histories offer a means to address migration amidst an increasingly polarized and antagonistic discourse?

 

This workshop aims to explore different modes and understandings of dis:connected histories, calling for a vigorous enquiry into how exactly connections worked and failed to work, suggesting an explicit engagement with the notions of performitivity and (dis)connectivity. Bringing together artists, artist-researchers and scholars from different fields of the arts, the workshop will facilitate a conversation across multifaceted artistic and theoretical perspectives that will critically investigate the gaps and cracks.

Please register here until 18 February 2026. The programme will be uploaded here soon.

Date: 26-27 February, 2026

Venue: Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect, Munich.