Chloe Turner

Feel Tanks (a spin of “think tank“) derive their name from one cell of a larger group known as the Public Feelings Project which operated from the conviction that “understanding affective investment can be the a starting point for theoretical insight into the workings of capitalism, racism and sexism within power structures“ (Cvetkovich, 2007). Feel Tank Chicago, "governed by outrage that the demands for a less bad life and a better good life continue to go
unrecognized“ (2012) organized a series of depress-ins and installations as part of academic conferences to perform their frustrations.

Through over fifteen workshops, seminars and lectures, Chloe Turner has been using Feel Tanks as both intellectual enquiry and call-to-arms, broadening both the theoretical and practical scope of what it means to live under capitalism in the current moment.

How can we take seriously the link between the affective intensity of feeling exhausted that registers in individual bodies and the social and political structures that affect us collectively? How do we think about these entangled feelings through a lens of feminist, queer, anti-racist and anti-ableist politics where so much ‘good’ scholarship emerges from sites of negativity and fraught experiences?

In the continuing struggles against global anti-Black, queer/transphobic conservative governance, pandemic "new normal“ living and the stripping of arts and humanities funding, nurturing spaces of care and connection have never felt more pressing. How do we bring into being the feminist space we want to be a part of?

A space where we gift our labour to each other as opposed to institutions, co-create the
spaces to weather the coming disasters and mobilise a resistance that centres pleasure and joy. This discussion-led workshop will focus on the negative affective entanglement of: Feminist Burnout.

—> More informations about the event and the entire festival programme via Nocturnal Unrest