Artist Talk by Young Girl Reading Group (YGRG)—Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė

In their work, Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė address feminist-inspired theory and (science)fiction, technology-driven emancipation and the discursiveness of space. They work within a variety of media, spanning performance, installation, fragrance, sculpture and video. With YOUNG GIRL READING GROUP (YGRG), an ongoing serial project (2013–), they examine the relationships between reading, affect, distraction, togetherness and disunity, bodily and virtual presence, live action and documentation, interested in how the collective experience of being together can be inscribed in space and how language can become material and embodied. For YGRG, the body of flesh, the location of the reading and the technology used, personify language, perform text and present that very contradiction – of processing material to immaterial, immaterial to material complexities of perceived bodies and environments. The body is re-textualized through technology and the reading is made public and embodied, positing the interdependence of the text, the body, the environment and the technology. The porosity of the queer reading produces a horizontal, useless, amoral and sensual space that lives only in and for experience. In their performances, the ongoing concern is to reconsider the way in which reading developed as a solitary, internalized practice within the modern society, thus having a formative influence on desire and the sexual experiences of individuals. Their current research focuses on the commodification of the ‘scopic’, the over-privileged position of vision over other senses, especially smell but also touch and sound.

YGRG investigates the act of reading as an intimate experience while creating the potential for public performances through the "outlouding" of words. It is a community that looks for a different way of approaching text and reading and sharing knowledge. It uses the reading circle principle as a critical practice and investigates the embodiment of language as artistic practice.

Dorota Gawęda (b. 1986, Lublin, PL) and Eglė Kulbokaitė (b. 1987, Kaunas, LT) are an artist duo working under the name YOUNG GIRL READING GROUP (2013–), based in Basel (CH) and Αthens (GR). Both are graduates of the Royal College of Art in London (2012). They are also the founders of Agatha Valkyrie Ice (2014-2017), under which name they have been part of the curatorial team of Oslo10 project space in Basel (2015-2017). Gawęda and Kulbokaitė have recently exhibited at Spazio Maiocchi, Milan; Lucas Hirsch Gallery, Düsseldorf (solo); Les Urbaines, Lausanne; 6th Αthens Biennale 2018 ΑΝΤΙ; Kunsthalle Fribourg, Switzerland; Art in General, New Yοrk; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Cell Project Space, London (solo); 6th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, MOMA; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London (solo); Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin; Knipsu, Bergen (solo); Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany; Sodų4 and Editorial, Vilnius (solo); 13th Baltic Triennial, Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Vilnius; CCA / Tallinna Kunstihoone, Tallinn; Kunsthalle Basel; ICA, London; Art Athina; Haus der Elektronischen Künste, Basel; SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen; 1.1, Basel (solo); Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (solo); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; SALTS, Basel; LISTE Performance Project, Basel; Berlin Biennale 9; CCS Bard, NY; Kunsthalle Zürich; and Le Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, among others. Selected upcoming exhibitions of the duo include presentations at: Lafayette Anticipations, Paris; Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London; Schimmel Projects – Art Centre Dresden (solo); Futura, Prague (solo); Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf/Berlin.