Ateliere & discuții - Maria Martelli

Letters illustration by Mina Mimosa from just wondering. Orange light, a person writing next to a cat.

Workshops, talks & screenings

I have facilitated and participated in various talks, public readings and screenings, many of them in self-organized & anti-authoritarian places. I love this element of openness towards people and exchange of ideas. Below, a small selection of some of the latest events/talks/lectures in more publicly known spaces.

Workshops

2024, October. Workshop „The School of Earth and Water. A multispecies speculation” with just wondering... and Mina Mimosa within Culture Quest, invited by Indecis artist run, Timișoara.

2024, July. Workshop on video-essay pre-production within the summer camp Linia Verde, a project by Telefonul Fără Fir, at hypha_etc.

2023, June. Two writing workshops as part of the Possible Worlds collaborative multimedia speculative workshops, Lumi Posibile, București.

2022, March - June. Imagining multispecies worlds, workshops organized as part of just wondering… at Ca Foscari Unviersity, Venice. Find out more about the workshops and the short film that resulted here. You can find the syllabus here.

Talks/discussions

2024, October. Speculative fiction for social change. Talk with Carolina Vozian, Andy Andreea & Paula Dunker, within Lumi Posibile, at Replika, Bucharest

2023, May. What’s doom got to do with animality? . Artist talk as part of just wondering…, Matca Artspace, Cluj-Napoca

2022, July. the (future) garden is gratitude. Artist talk as part of just wondering… at Indecis, Timișoara

2022, January. Wild things: despre ecofeminism. Workshop organized by AIVI

Screenings

2024, October. Screening & discussion „Natural Gas - The bridge to climate disaster” by just wondering... with Gastivists, part of the „Camera Comună” project, Arthub X, Bucharest

2023, October. Screenings just wondering… within the art exhibition Porous Matter, Meta Spațiu, Timișoara

2022, September. Imagining multispecies worlds. Screening & discussion as part of just wondering…, Teatro Ca Foscari, Venice

2021, August-September. Screenings just wondering… within the art exhibition The Apocalypse of The White Elephant, Baroque Palace, Timișoara

Writing exercises

Everyday food

We interact with food several times a day, every day, but when we find it in poetry, how do we find it? How is food talked about in the literary universe, when is it talked about? When food appears in poetry, what emotions does it bring with it? How do we write critically about our relationship with food?

I held this workshop during a meeting with the literary Cenacle X, where I proposed for reading the following selection of poems (in Romanian and English). You can also find them here for your inspiration.

Guiding questions

Think of a dish, either from childhood or the present, to which you feel a strong attachment or emotion. Where does it come from? What does that dish mean? Is it who makes it, or the space in which it is eaten? Is it a negative or positive emotion?
What are the differences between what the food looks like on the plate and the journey it takes to get there? Who produces it? Who harvests it? What connections are made between these, and how might they be more ethical? If we are thinking about products that involve the killing of animals, how do we talk/write about it? How can we interact with the emotions of comfort, for example, that come with foods that inevitably involve violence (meat, milk, eggs, etc.)?
Eating as an act of exploring one's own body in contact with the outside. Eating as an act with erotic potential. Taste, texture, smell - an exploration of the senses.
Sharing food as a communal gesture, joy, celebration, the way food brings us together, or, at the opposite pole, the way food (and its consumption) divides us (for example, the idea of feminist/queer/vegan killjoy around the traditional meal).
Traditional foods, local foods and urban-rural differences in food preparation and food contact. How is violence hidden behind tradition, how is it invisibilised or justified by it? We can think of Easter meals involving the killing of lambs and the eating of eggs, or Christmas meals. We can also consider the prevalence of Orthodox fasting and the discourses surrounding it, think about our constitution as Eastern European subjects through contact with regional food and cultural practices here.
The production of food, either through cultivation or the act of cooking. What kind of work is this, and for whom? How do we learn to do it? How do we relate to it? What emotions does it evoke in us?

After writing

Objects from the future

The objects around us are artefacts of the society we live in. They exist at the intersection of social, economic, ecological and historical contexts. Their design is not innocent, but takes into account certain voices, certain purposes. So objects can enable or disable, allow certain actions for some bodies and hinder them for others. A door, for example, may be easy for an abled adult to open, but harder for a child or a pigeon to operate. For an exploration of the link between animal liberation and the disability rights movement, I recommend watching this video-essay.

How can we look at material objects and infrastructures around us, keeping in mind what they make possible, and what they make impossible? You can start from the simple things in front of you.

Through writing, explore

An instruction manual, a technical or poetic description of a future object. What purpose does it serve? Who produces it and how? How do people come into possession of it? Who has it?
An instruction manual, technical or poetic description of an object from the present seen by someone from a utopian future. What purpose does it serve? Who produces it and how? How do people come into possession of it? Who has it?

If you want, you can set a 35-minute timer.

After writing

A relatively easy list

A game about you, like a childhood journal. A short exercise, maximum 5 - 10 minutes.

Through writing, explore

After writing

How did it feel to complete the list?

Did it go fast, or slow?

What was most difficult, if anything?

We often find it hard to write about ourselves, to present ourselves as writers and to own that. I've come up with a relatively easy list that can be shaped to one's desires and, put together, makes a decent bio, just in case you need it. I think it can also work for artists, researchers, or anyone with a bit of imposter syndrome.