Info: Participants are asked to bring comfortable clothing and a water bottle.

Quiet Emotions offers a brave space on mental load for FLINTA* and BiPOC. The event is especially directed towards cultural workers, young professionals and first-time employees, but also to those who switch a lot between several jobs and projects. In a society that teaches us a lot about depression, anxiety, pressure and multiple loads within our every-day lives in theory, it is still hard to speak up as an individual. We are informed by small talk, hoping not to make a bad impression, not wanting to be a burden and the tendency to downplay fears and emotions only to turn over our worries and thoughts in one’s mind all by ourselves. What if we could instead create a space to be able to speak openly with each other? Or if we had an outlet to better handle our emotions, even to acknowledge them? Each of us has some baggage to carry, but we are not alone with these kinds of problems. Quiet Emotions invites participants to compare notes. The programme is centred around an open conversation with a moderated panel talk held by Parissima Taheri-Maynard and Farah Saad, followed by a practical part (designed by Veza Fernández). We don’t just talk about it – let’s do something to make a change.

Workshop 

Cleidy Acevedo was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in Vorarlberg. After attending the HLMW9 Michelbeuern fashion school in Vienna, she created several low-budget films and got in touch with the theatre world in productions at Volkstheater, Theater in der Josefstadt and Neue Oper Wien. Early successes as an assistant director include the shows Tod-Krank.Doc, Dänisches Sushi and PEACES (Fragments of Love). Outside the theatre, Cleidy Acevedo enjoys writing prose.

Veza Fernández is a dance, voice and performance artist based in Vienna. Her work deals with the poetics and politics of expression as a place of association, imagination and transformation. It interlaces singing, writing, dancing and speaking as physical forms of learning, experimenting and performing. Full of empathy and intensity, Fernández’s pieces are polyphonous assemblies of voices and presences craving to move and to be moved. Veza Fernández’s background ranges across the fields of philology, education, theatre, music and contemporary dance. She holds a master’s degree in choreography from the DAS Graduate School (Amsterdam Academy for Theatre and Dance). Her work has been presented, among other places, at brut Wien, Tanzquartier Wien, Sophiensæle in Berlin, Gessnerallee in Zurich, de Singel in Antwerp and La Casa Encendida in Madrid.
vezafernandez.com

Speakers panel talk

Wir sind auch Wien (We too are Vienna) is a platform for BIPoC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) focused on mental health and the organization of self-care events. At the core lays the exploration of histories and roots with stories of intergenerational trauma and intergenerational resilience. Wir sind auch Wien is run by Parissima Taheri-Maynard and Farah Saad, both BIPOC mental health practitioners with a dedication to holding space for safe(r) and accessible self-care, community care and empowerment for BIPoC, as well as supporting psychosocial professionals in (un)learning about the intersection of racism and mental health.