W21 Questionnaire
The production and circulation of an annual questionnaire is at the core of our practice and research. W21 challenges the never-evolving nature of the archive, and its fixed discriminating taxonomy. The collected answers are processed by a software and reimagined as a navigable matrix. This ‘active data’ will become the primary material for transmedia storytelling across multiple platforms, in the form of artists’ commissions, essays, and panel discussions.
Consider the phenomenon of Disembodiment and its multivalent possibilities. The questions do not define W21's mission: they are designed to challenge our thinking.
1. In its 16th century origins, the term embodiment referred to “a soul or spirit invested with a physical form.” Only in the 18th century did its counter, “disembodiment,” speculate a divestment from the body— the “freeing from flesh.” Lived experience defines these terms not as oppositions but on a spectrum. The status of the body is continuously in flux. Defining gender harbors a similar history— from binaries to relentlessly negotiated multiplicities. How do gender and dis/embodiment play out in the spaces you inhabit? In your work? Is it possible, and if so how, to define what it means to be a ‘woman’ in the 21st Century? (max 250 words)
2. W21mvb (Message in a Virtual Bottle): What would you say to future generations of women?
3. W21next: Name the next inspiring woman you want to be linked with, and we ask that you send this questionnaire to them.
Please email us your questionnaire, together with a short bio, a profile or a picture that defines you, and an image that you feel describes this year's theme: Disembodiment.
Any personal contact information collected from this questionnaire, or in our own processing of questionnaire data, will remain private and not be shared. Only your name, title/institutional affiliation, and responses will be publicized through the W21 website with your consent. You will be notified of the possible application of your responses to additional W21 projects (publications, curatorial endeavors, conference presentations, etc.) and you will have the opportunity to endorse or decline its further use.