In the organizer's words:

Closing event for the exhibition with Christa Joo Hyun D'Angelo (media artist, Berlin) and Hugo Tepest (author, Leipzig)

The closing event of our exhibition "The Will to Change" combines a reading, video screening and discussion to create a dense afternoon that critically explores the constructions of masculinity, intimacy and power.

Christa Joo Hyun D'Angelo's video installation "A Lover's Touch" (2022) opens this dialog with a cinematic examination of how closeness, control and violence intertwine in relationships. Based on bell hooks' analysis of emotional speechlessness and patriarchal structures of violence, the work sheds light on how emotional and capitalist dependencies, as well as racism, shape intimate structures and reinforce inequality - and how they perpetuate oppression in everyday life.

Hugo Tepest will read several passages from his latest essay "Are penises real?" (2025) and thus tie in with these debates. Combining personal experience, queer theory and cultural history, he questions the myths surrounding a body part overloaded with meaning and the norms that structure the body, desire and masculinity and how these are socially produced. His reflections can be read in the sense of Raewyn Connell's concept of the "made man": Masculinity appears as a cultural construction that creates hierarchies, reinforces norms and marginalizes people - including men themselves.

In the joint discussion, both perspectives come together: How do patriarchal and capitalist logics extend into the private sphere? How do they shape images of masculinity, intimacy and self-images? And how can artistic approaches open up spaces for transformation, as bell hooks formulated it as the "will to change"?