Rooms
Luan Pertl: The audio you are listening to right now is for everyone. If I switch to the audio for inter* only, I hear the same sentence with the other inter* people at the same moment. We are jointly present in a listening space, accessed on the basis of trust, and only intersex people are invited.
Hiker Chiu: We have power, to create more spaces and meeting for our community so I believe we will ... we will reach it.
Luan Pertl: Yeah Hiker, I think you're right, because when I attended my first intersex community event, I had also the feeling I'm in inter-utopia because it was the first time when I met other people and, yeah, I could ... when I was in a room just with intersex people and we had laughter and everything you know and that was …
Hiker Chiu: So relaxed, right?
Luan Pertl: Yeah, absolutely.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: Thank you, Luan, and kia ora everyone. So yes – Mani Bruce Mitchell from Aotearoa in New Zealand. But the big piece of work that's needed is safe places where we can do our healing work together. When we come together, we can do that, we actually know how to do that, but we need to be able to get together and to have this supportive work.
Luan Pertl: Hi, my name is Luan Pertl, I initiatied this exhibition, and am therefore also part of the curating team. The audio you are listening to is for all visitors. But for an easily accessible experience and sensation of a shared space, we have also created an acoustic space in this exhibition that's there for us intersex people only.
Eliana Rubashkyn: My name is Eliana Rubashkyn.As we want celebration, we want that celebration to be happening, but it is sometimes difficult to be at the centre of a celebration. That's why for some of us it's very difficult to go to a pride. Especially when we are so invisibilized and we don't feel that there is a space for us. And sometimes we feel that the identities that had been, you know that they are being, um, role modelled in those pride events are actually not us.
Hiker Chiu: I believe there will be a utopia for intersex people in the future, and – and we have to create it.
Crystal Hendricks: Um, you know, there's the saying where they say, um, »nothing about us without us« and I think that that is so important that people are actually telling their own stories.
Eliana Rubashkyn: I think it's just to respect and understanding that, you know, that we grew up with trauma and sometimes some of us are not very comfortable with being surrounded by many persons, because you know, okay ... So what would be ... how will be like a Room, you know, I would say a utopian place ... like a location.
Crystal Hendricks: What stood out for me is when intersex people, um, documenting themselves. There's been a lot of education around intersex people.
Eliana Rubashkyn: But for us, if it's not because of the Internet, we won't be able to be with each other, and to talk and to have this possibility of being with each other. So I think that the Internet has been that place that has given us the sense of not feeling alone and not feeling that there is no one around there for us, okay.
Luan Pertl: We need spaces for common experience. A common experience of intersex history and stories, and of a present as well. A being in the moment, an existence, a visibility. What's needed is a wide variety of spaces, spaces for thought, intersex archives, working spaces ... in order to think up a future.
Hiker Chiu: We have power, to create more spaces and meeting for our community so I believe we will ... we will reach it.
Luan Pertl: Yeah Hiker, I think you're right, because when I attended my first intersex community event, I had also the feeling I'm in inter-utopia because it was the first time when I met other people and, yeah, I could ... when I was in a room just with intersex people and we had laughter and everything you know and that was …
Hiker Chiu: So relaxed, right?
Luan Pertl: Yeah, absolutely.
Mani Bruce Mitchell: Thank you, Luan, and kia ora everyone. So yes – Mani Bruce Mitchell from Aotearoa in New Zealand. But the big piece of work that's needed is safe places where we can do our healing work together. When we come together, we can do that, we actually know how to do that, but we need to be able to get together and to have this supportive work.
Luan Pertl: Hi, my name is Luan Pertl, I initiatied this exhibition, and am therefore also part of the curating team. The audio you are listening to is for all visitors. But for an easily accessible experience and sensation of a shared space, we have also created an acoustic space in this exhibition that's there for us intersex people only.
Eliana Rubashkyn: My name is Eliana Rubashkyn.As we want celebration, we want that celebration to be happening, but it is sometimes difficult to be at the centre of a celebration. That's why for some of us it's very difficult to go to a pride. Especially when we are so invisibilized and we don't feel that there is a space for us. And sometimes we feel that the identities that had been, you know that they are being, um, role modelled in those pride events are actually not us.
Hiker Chiu: I believe there will be a utopia for intersex people in the future, and – and we have to create it.
Crystal Hendricks: Um, you know, there's the saying where they say, um, »nothing about us without us« and I think that that is so important that people are actually telling their own stories.
Eliana Rubashkyn: I think it's just to respect and understanding that, you know, that we grew up with trauma and sometimes some of us are not very comfortable with being surrounded by many persons, because you know, okay ... So what would be ... how will be like a Room, you know, I would say a utopian place ... like a location.
Crystal Hendricks: What stood out for me is when intersex people, um, documenting themselves. There's been a lot of education around intersex people.
Eliana Rubashkyn: But for us, if it's not because of the Internet, we won't be able to be with each other, and to talk and to have this possibility of being with each other. So I think that the Internet has been that place that has given us the sense of not feeling alone and not feeling that there is no one around there for us, okay.
Luan Pertl: We need spaces for common experience. A common experience of intersex history and stories, and of a present as well. A being in the moment, an existence, a visibility. What's needed is a wide variety of spaces, spaces for thought, intersex archives, working spaces ... in order to think up a future.
