A Common Queer Body

A public artist talk and a workshop by Leire de Meer

OCT 2nd, 2025

10 a. m.

Kafkárna

Buštěhradská 2, Praha 6

The event is part of the UMPRUM Visiting Artist Studio programme

Artist Talk: 10:00 – 12:30

The first part of the session will open with an introduction to Leire de Meer’s (they/he/she) artistic practice. This will begin with a critical overview of the historical construction of gender in the West, establishing the theoretical foundation that informs part of their work. Leire will then present a selection of past projects  to illustrate how they approach these themes through their artistic practice, exploring the tensions and possibility between theory and practice.

We will then watch and discuss “Through here passed Genus Radix,” Leire’s latest film, developed as part of their master's thesis. The film stems from their participation in the 2019 Genus Radix Study Group at the Reina Sofía Museum, a non-mixed artistic research project for trans, queer, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people that studied the volatility of gender. The film is a central part of a counter-archive created more than four years after the project's completion.

Lunch Break: 12:30 – 14:00 (shared meal)

Workshop: 14:00 – 16:00

Following the lines of inquiry opened up during the talk, the workshop will share the methodologies of Leire’s current artistic research, Common Body, developed during their residency at MeetFactory. These proposals are designed to open a collective space for experimentation.

Leire will offer methodologies to work from and deepen within our place of artistic enunciation, questioning if there is such a thing as an objective stance.  The session will then invite participants to explore embodied practices and the materiality of language as tools to navigate the complexities of their own artistic research.

bio:

Leire de Meer (1999, Madrid) is a visual artist and performer whose practice focuses on the ability that fiction has to alter materiality. Through performance, video, participatory art and the creation of artistic communities they explore questions around queer embodiment, monstrous bodies, and grief. They studied Fine Arts at Complutense University of Madrid and an MA in History of Contemporary Art and Visual Culture from Reina Sofía National Museum in collaboration with Complutense University and Autonoma University of Madrid. Since then, they have exhibited their work internationally in Tokyo (KUMA Gallery), Hiroshima (SAGORI Gallery Space), Helsinki (Lapinlahden Lähde), Maribor (OBRAT Gallery), and nationally in Barcelona (Ca la Dona) and Madrid (Museo Reina Sofía and Intermediae Matadero). They have also participated in contemporary art conferences in Helsinki (ELIA Biennal), Madrid (Acción Springt), Barcelona (Bollos et al) and Tokyo (Stilllive Studies).

They are currently an artist in residency at MeetFactory in collaboration with Studio Alta.

Credit of the photograph: Anna Poleteli