POST Arnhem
BOOK LAUNCH
BOOK LAUNCH : The New Subject. Mutating Rights and Conditions of Living Bodies
Date: May 14 2025
Time: 20:00 - 21:30
Location: POST – ARNHEM
Address: Weverstraat 40, Arnhem
Language: English
RSVP here
On Wednesday, May 14, POST will host the book launch of The New Subject: Mutating Rights and Conditions of Living Bodies, edited by the curatorial collective TOK (Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits) and the artistic director of KINDL, Kathrin Becker, published by DISTANZ (Berlin).
The book presentation will consist of a conversation between curator Anna Bitkina, co-founder of TOK and the book’s co-editor, and Eef Veldkamp, an artist and philosopher. They will weave together the various strands of artistic research on the body, technology, and law encompassed under the umbrella of The New Subject. Beginning with the human body as a contested site of ideological and political power struggles, the book explores the challenges and constraints it encounters in relation to global biopolitics, technological advancements, and militarism. Topics will range from bodies impacted by colonial state policies to automated healthcare systems, and from trans rights to bodily resistance and the reclaiming of justice.
The book is the result of a two-year exhibition project initiated by TOK and presented by four European art institutions: Konsthall C (Sweden), Kunsthal NORD (Denmark), Oksasenkatu 11 (Finland), and KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art (Germany). It features works by more than thirty artists and collectives that explore themes such as bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and societal norms surrounding the body. In their complex projects, they question prevailing narratives and seek to dismantle oppressive state, economic, and ideological structures.
Anna Bitkina (NL/ RU, 1977)
Anna Bitkina is a curator, writer, and co-founder of the curatorial duo TOK. In her durational and transdisciplinary projects, Anna aims to generate critical analysis of contemporary reality by addressing the implications caused by different forms of dominant ideologies, oppressive powers, and their consequences on everyday life. Anna was a research fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Berlin; she holds an MA from the Dutch Art Institute (ArtEZ University of the Arts) and regularly contributes to Metropolis M, NERO Editions, and other art outlets. Since 2023, Anna has worked as a guest curator at a historical museum Paleis Het Loo, where she conducts a research-based project, State of Wander. Towards Environmental Restoration, which challenges the potential of historical collections in response to pressing contemporary political and environmental inquiries.
Eef Veldkamp (NL, 1993)
Eef Veldkamp is an engaged artist, philosopher, and lecturer at ArtEZ University of the Arts and HKU. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD in philosophy at Radboud University. Through his writings, Veldkamp primarily develops cultural critiques inspired by the scope and methods of the Frankfurt School. Appealing to numerous philosophical and sociological registers such as aesthetics, ethics, phenomenology, and economy, these critiques address phenomena such as swearing with diseases, the ironic in irony, the fallacy of the trolley problem, and opinion as the secularization of the soul. The insights from his writings frequently spin off into artistic projects that attempt to actuate the findings of his critiques.