Mad Ground
How does the study of MADNESS and of mad experiences activate LIBERATORY PRACTICES within artistic work and education?
11.2.26
11.2.26
17:00 - 19:00
Studio, Thoravej 29, 2400 København NV
This event is a conversation as the closure of the artists' residency. Participation in the event is FREE but please reserve a ticket, as there are limited spots. You can book a ticket here:
The artistic research
Mad Ground came together as a collective compelled by our shared questions of COMPLICITY with institutional orientations towards genocide, as well as our desire to re-wild our approaches to artistic research and pedagogy, while re-invigorating our queer, religious, and embodied practices.
The collective explores how working with states of MADNESS, including overwhelm, grief, trigger, and dysregulation grow educational methodologies which challenge ableist notions of safety and wellbeing towards more LIBERATORY PRACTICES and pedagogy? The collective asks:
How have regimes of safe(r) space, which prioritize safety and EMOTIONAL REGULATION over all else, limit artistic education while maintaining status quo distributions of power and harm? How can experiences of madness be understood as opportunities for generative exploration and what kinds of structures and facilitation are necessary for this? How do we address issues of risk and harm within such a research? What are ethical concerns stemming from uneven distributions of power and how might we mitigate these?
For Mad Ground, our explorations of madness coincide and intertwine with our SPIRITUAL and FAITH PRACTICES. Overwhelm and dysregulation have long been utilized in religious ceremonies to promote self-knowledge and open practitioners up to new ways of being and seeing the world (often through the lens of connection with divinity). How can we as educators bring in this spiritual/faith component of the research while respecting people’s different backgrounds, beliefs, and cultures? How can we utilize our own religious practices of madness with students safely and respectfully?
The artists
The artists came together during the student occupations of the University of Amsterdam and Amsterdam University of the Arts during the spring 2024.
Elioa Steffen (she/they), Raoni/Muzho Saleh (he/him), Maryam Babur (she/her) and Alex Blum (she/her) are members of the Mad Ground research collective.
Collaborators:
Mette Loulou von Kohl (she/her)
Cosmo M. Soltani (he/they)
Torben Bremann (he/him): Qigong / Taiji workshop
Cosmo M. Soltani
Cosmo (he/they) is a 5 Element Acupuncturist based in NV, Copenhagen, and the founder of COSMOS - a trans-led community care clinic in Cph, DK. Their practice centers on healing trauma and creating containers of care for all who are called to connect more deeply with their mind, body and spirit.
Alex Blum
Alex Blum (she/her) is educated in choreography at School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam and in political science at Freie Universität Berlin. As a member of the queer performance pedagogical collective In Pursuit of Otherwise Possibility, Alex writes and teaches about queer feedback, consent, and rejection practices in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. Since 2025, Alex has been the artistic leader of HAUT in Copenhagen.
Alex's artistic work unfolds embodied notions of freedom in the face of violence. In performances at a wide range of international venues, Alex involves the audience in the rehearsal situation of dance to highlight the body's ability to touch, listen to, consent to, and witness each other as more than just political fixations.
In Alex's works and texts, biography and activism often merge with (Danish) queer historical archives, including those on the Gay Liberation Front and Lili Elbe. This is her contribution to the democratic conversation: to choreograph testimonies that there have always been and always will be ways to make our bodies outside the norm, and that breaking the norm is the embodiment of freedom.
Elioa Steffen
Elioa Steffen (she/they, USA/NL) is an artist working in the fields of performance, visual art, and curation. Her work focuses on the intersection of communal narratives, cultural norms, and systemic violence. At the heart of Elioa’s practice is the pursuit of a queer belonging, an effort to entangle with others and the world beyond the normative structures we have inherited. Currently, she is working in several collaborative constellations exploring both trans-feminine voice in religious ecstasy and the pedagogical possibilities of madness. She is an alumni of DAS Theatre.
Maryam Babur
Maryam Babur (she/her) holds a Hon. BSc. with a double-major in Biochemistry and Philosophy (University of Western Ontario), and a Research MA in Philosophy, cum laude (University of Amsterdam, UvA). She teaches philosophy at the School for New Dance Development (Amsterdam University of the Arts) and Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE, UvA). She has overseen multiple curriculum developments, and continues her research on various philosophical themes, spirituality, decoloniality, and anti-fascist and anti-racist pedagogy.
The format
IN PROCESS is HAUTs 1-2 weeks residency format, which affords time and space for physical brainstorms that support the exploration and development of new ideas within the performing arts.
This residency is curated and invited as part of the ongoing artistic work of HAUT's artistic leader Alex Blum.