Goddess Change

Anna Hoetjes and Müge Yılmaz

GODDESS CHANGE

Feminist Science fiction reading group
Buro Stedelijk Amsterdam
2024-2025

In the year 2024, the story of Parable of the Sower begins. Written by Octavia E. Butler in 1993, the science fiction masterpiece follows protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina as she comes of age in the dystopian circumstances of a bleak future world.

We took the year that the book starts as a point of departure for the reading group. Participants collectively explored the agency that we can find in speculative futures, especially when examined through a feminist and queer lens. Together, we delved into possible parallels between visual arts and science fiction literature, and examined various ways in which alternative future worlds have been portrayed.

To reach beyond and outside of our own positions, it was important for us to collaborate with others in hosting the group. Their backgrounds differ broadly, resulting in a rich variety of approaches. Yet they all find inspiration in Octavia E. Butler’s work, which shows the enormous influence her writing continues to have. Each of them led a different session, in which an intimate group of participants read and discussed passages from Parable of the Sower and other science fiction texts, celebrating the many feminist and queer speculative writers that emerged from her legacy.

For the duration of the Goddess Change reading group series, which spanned more than a year, the large wall in the office of Buro Stedelijk became a temporary document on which we marked the discussions and conversations that took place. With each additional session, it grew further into a fluid, generous, raging archive of how the texts we were reading resonate with the present state of the world. This wall-turned-archive carried the traces of how we found hope and strength through reading, and how it enabled us to imagine other futures.

Initiated by Anna Hoetjes and Müge Yılmaz.
Thanks to Rita Ouédraogo and Hana Hussain and the whole team of Buro Stedelijk.
With enormous gratitude to all hosts.
Special thanks to the team of W139 Amsterdam who allowed us to make the exhibition Taking Root Among the Stars alongside this reading group.

Sessions and texts

Bios

Anna Hoetjes

annahoetjes.nl

Müge Yılmaz

mugeyilmaz.com/

Institution(ing)s is a medium-scale collaboration project co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.