In May 2024 visual artist Stefanía Olafsdóttir (they/them) is in residency at the studio community Kommunal Kunst & Teknik. During her stay, Olafsdóttir will continue to work on her research around Assisted Reproductive Technology (methods for artificial insemination) as well as the history associated with this and its unexpected consequences - especially in a Scandinavian context. As part of this research, they want to get in touch with other "TechnoChildren", a term they use to describe people who have been conceived through egg or sperm donation. Olafsdóttir writes the following about the project:
"As a TechnoChild (born via ART) in Iceland with donated Danish sperm, I am entangled in the biopolitical webs of these realities and through them confront the paradoxes within the familial. My current focus is on embodied exploration of what ancestry and nationality mean by inhabiting the factual – yet fictional – nature of my Danishness. Copenhagen is where I have been wishing to play with the contested borders of belonging through the lens of gamete donation and the tensions they hold in curating national identities. In parallel to my work in Helsinki, I want to extend an open call to other TechnoChildren in Copenhagen in an attempt to build community based on technological commonality as an exercise in expanding kinship. I am keen to share my research through my performance praxis to open a dialogue and extend a network in Denmark around these topics.”
A Search for TechnoChildren
As a part of my artistic research I will be conducting an artistic residency with Kommunal Kunst og Teknik at their studios in Copenhagen, and I want to gather fellow TechnoChildren to explore if we can find a kind of kinship through a common technological method of conception: being the child of sperm and egg donors.
Everyone is welcome, and please reach out if you feel like this calls you, but you're not sure if you fit into the category of a TechnoChild, I want to talk about it, it's an open definition, an open question!
I will be hosting in-person gatherings for this community in Copenhagen in May 2024, and the date and time will emerge depending on the availability of those of you who reach out. So let me know if you're interested and when you can come meet up! (For those based around Helsinki gathering will happen later in 2024. But a virtual community, dialogue and platform can emerge as well.)
*Questions that are present in my research at the moment:*
What are the boundaries of kinship? On what basis is it possible to define nationhood? How can one feel unknown ancestry? What is the lived impact of performing kinships of our choice? What gives one the feeling of, and the right to claim citizenship? With what bodies, in whose body & with whom in my body do I feel at home?
What defines and holds a community together? How can I explore the relationship between gender dysphoria and 'genetic-dysphoria'?
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Please be in touch if you are interested in exploring this topic further together & check out my previous performances for a taste of what the journey has looked like so far!
You can find me on instagram @organicmatterforthemoon Or email me at stefaniaolafs.96@gmail.com
Read more here: https://organicmatterforthemoon.art/search4technochildren/
