LISTENING TO CASSANDRA

LISTENING TO CASSANDRA

Monday March 24th, 2025

A Master Symposium hosted by the CCC – Critical Curatorial Cybermedia, HEAD - Genève

Room R.36, Bd James-Fazy 15, 1201 Genève

With interventions by

Cecilia Canziani, Carla Demierre, Adrienne Drake, Hélène Frappat, Zahrasadat Hakim, Basim Magdy, Keith Piper

«Cassandra. I saw her at once. (...) I believed every word she said, feeling unconditional trust was still possible. Three thousand years - dissolved. Thus, the gift of clairvoyance, which the god had bestowed upon her, proved enduring, and only his verdict vanished, that no one would believe her. She seemed worthy of faith in another sense; it seemed to me that she was the only one who knew herself in this drama.»

- Christa Wolf, Cassandra, 1983

In the myth of Cassandra, daughter of the Trojan monarchs Hecuba and Priam, the ability to anticipate the future and facts intersects with disbelief. It is said that Apollo offered her the gift of foresight but robbed her of the power to gain trust and persuade. In 1983, Christa Wolf’s feminist perspective placed Cassandra on the scene of history as a witness who records her time—which she sees and foresees—with a measure of anticipation. Her myth reveals in filigree the trajectory of those who share (leak, disclose) information and knowledge publicly.

The Listening to Cassandra Master Symposium brings together artists, writers and poets whose research is concerned with the question of incredulity and confidence in the confrontation between scientific and informal knowledge, the desire to complete history with voices that have hitherto remained unheard and current approaches to speaking out.

The conference is accompanied by the exhibition Looking for Cassandra; Voices Testimonies Futures curated by the students of the CCC Master’s programme at LIYH - Live in Your Head in collaboration with Video Database/FMAC - Collection d'art contemporain de la Ville de Genève.

The symposium will be hosted in English, Q&A in English and French. 

Symposium Schedule

09:30-09:45  Introduction w/ Federica Martini

- Session 1 – Cassandra

09:45-10:30    Keith Piper, artist, In Search of Four Horses, keynote, followed by Q&A

10:30-11:15    Basim Magdy, artist, The Birds Choose the Cards – Fortune Telling in Times of Conflict, screening and conversation

11:15-13:00    Introduction to the exhibition Looking for Cassandra; Voices Testimonies Futures at LIYH hosted by CCC students

Lunch proposed by artist Zahrasadat Hakim

- Session 2 – On silenced voices

 14:00-14:45   Cecilia Canziani & Adrienne Drake, curators, Her Voice as Something Borrowed, followed by Q&A

14:45-15:30    Hélène Frappat, writer and researcher, Becoming Cassandra, As a Writer, followed by Q&A

15:30-16:15    Carla Demierre, writer, La Fille de Mars, followed by Q&A

16:15-17:00    Closing remarks and visit to the exhibition

Biographies

Cecilia Canziani is an art historian, curator and holds a PhD in Art History, University of Naples Federico II; MA in Curating, Goldsmiths, University of London; and Laurea in Lettere (summa cum laude), Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Italy. She is full professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti in L’Aquila, Italy and Adjunct faculty at Università di Roma Tor Vergata, and member of the Collegio Dottorale at Accademia di Belle Arti of Naples. She is co-founder of the independent research center for contemporary art IUNO, Rome and of the publishing project Les Cerises, Paris. She regularly contributes to Flash Art and Antinomie. Selected curated exhibitions include: Luisa Gardini. La stessa voce, ma non lo stesso canto, Fondazione del Monte di Bologna, Bologna (2025, co-curated with I. Gianni); Roma, a Portrait, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma (2023); Io dico io, La galleria nazionale di arte moderna, Rome (2021 co-curated with L. Conte and P. Ugolini). She was awarded the Italian Council program (13thedition, 2024) by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture with the research project A Splendid Isolation.

Carla Demierre studied art in Geneva and creative writing in Montreal. Her practice ranges across forms that are printed, performed and recorded. Her texts mix poetry and storytelling, formal experimentation and documentary cut-up. Demierre has been teaching Writing at the HEAD–Genève between 2012 and 2022, while also hosting regular literary events, including the “Mondes Parlés” readings in collaboration with the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, and “L’heure du thé,” a series of podcasts and meetings at the Grütli. Her publications include: L’Ecole de la fôret (2023), Mrioir, Mioirr (2022), Qui est là? (2019), Ma mère est humoriste (2011).

Adrienne Drake is a curator, art historian, and adjunct professor at John Cabot University in Rome. She is the founding Director and Curator of Fondazione Giuliani, a non-profit contemporary art space that emphasizes new artistic production and the exploration of multiple or tangential aspects of an artist’s practice. Since the Foundation’s inception in 2010, she has curated an international roster of solo presentations and group exhibitions, including artists Caroline Achaintre, Isabelle Cornaro, N. Dash, Michael Dean, Alicja Kwade, Benoît Maire, Ahmet Ögüt, Nora Schultz, Oscar Tuazon and Francesco Vezzoli, as well as developed a programme of guest curators, performances, events and off-site projects. She also curates independently, a selection of exhibitions at the Academy of Fine Arts, Rome; CNEAI Centre national édition art image, Chatou, France; Festival Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro; Fondation Hippocrène, Paris; MACRO, Rome; Mattatoio, Rome; Press to Exit, Skopje. She is co-founder of Magic Lantern Film Festival, a semi-annual thematic investigation of the interstice between visual art and cinema.

Hélène Frappat is a French writer, translator and film critic. A former student of the ENS, she has a degree in philosophy and a doctorate in literature. She is the author of several translations from English and Italian (Hannah Arendt, Theodor W. Adorno, Ann Patchett, etc.). From 2004 to 2009, she produced the monthly film magazine R ien à voir on France Culture, and several documentaries, including Villes-Mondes: Vancouver (2021) and Turin (2021), and Une vie, une œuvre: Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) (2021). She has also created radio dramas. She is the author of eight novels and a non-fiction work, Trois femmes disparaissent (Actes Sud), to be published in January 2023, which takes the form of an investigation into three film actresses, Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith and Dakota Johnson, to expose the violence of this industry. In 2023 she authored Gaslighting ou l’art de faire taire les femmes.

Zahrasadat Hakim, born in 1983 in Qom, Iran, to an Iraqi immigrant family. She completed a BA in 2017 and a master’s in visual arts at HEAD - Genève in 2022. Like a woven textile, her work creates and reveals itself through layers that are successively and patiently added one on top of the other. In every line, the same threads are used: those of the artist’s personal narrative, her dreams, the painful memory of a war, a childhood home, and the care she has given to others and to things.

Basim Magdy (b. 1977 in Assiut, Egypt) lives and works in Basel, Switzerland, as an artist and filmmaker. His films, paintings and photographic works are layered with poetic gestures and unusual observations that allude to absurdity as a daily occurrence. His work colorfully mixes fiction with historical references and collective delusion embedded with humor– all of which seem to be trapped inside a confused sense of time where the past, present and future constantly switch places.  His work appeared recently in solo exhibitions at museums such as Kunsthalle Bern (2025), Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg (2022); MuHKA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (2020); MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon (2019); Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France (2019); MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2020); MAXXI National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome (2016). His work is in the collections of MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York ; Guggenheim, New York ; MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago ; Centre Pompidou, Paris ; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa ; MAXXI - Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome ; Castello di Rivoli - Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Torino ; MuHKA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp; Deutsche Bank Collection ; Sharjah Art Foundation; ARTER, Istanbul among others.

Keith Piper is a British artist and academic. In addition to his work as a visual artist, he has worked as a curator, writer and researcher. His creative practice responds to specific social and political issues, historical relationships and geographical sites. Adopting a research driven approach, and using a variety of media, his work over the past 30 years has ranged from painting, through photography and installation to a use of digital media, video and computer based interactivity. His work oozes Piper’s political concerns and his practice links to his involvement with the Blk Art Group: a collective of art students encouraging an interest in art by black artists in Britain. Keith Piper has exhibited internationally but has had many solo shows in London especially. He has had his work shown in group shows at various institutions including Tate Britain and at the Turner Contemporary.