Lee Tzu-Tung, who was part of the South East Asia Netting Group gathering in Phuket, contributes BOTAMEVE, an embodied protocol developed through long-term artistic and political engagement with queer communities. Inspired by Crip Theory, The Body's Tale of Mercy & Vengeance (BOTAMEVE) is a feminist fight club where members examine the mercies and harms their bodies have experienced – whether rooted in sexuality or disabled lived realities. Conceived not as an artwork to be displayed but as a living operational script, BOTAMEVE proposes the body itself as a site of encrypted knowledge, care, memory, and resistance. The protocol emerges from Tzu Tung’s research into how vulnerability, survival, and intimacy circulate through bodies under conditions of precarity, surveillance, and moral regulation. It harnesses the weight of suffering into calculated hope, engaging in resistance to honour the body with mercy and vengeance, beyond healing.

Within By The Mango Belt & Tamarind Road, BOTAMEVE unfolds collaboratively with Arc Durukan – part of Transsexworks Berlin, a peer-to-peer support structure by and for trans sex workers – whose practice shapes frameworks that respond to the lived experiences of intersectional identities and oppressions. Together, Tzu Tung and Arc activate the protocol as a situated practice of mutual aid, harm-reduction, and collective attunement. Rather than producing symbolic representation, the contribution foregrounds care as infrastructure: protocols for safer work, shared knowledge transmission, and embodied solidarity are treated as cosmotechnical practices in their own right.

BOTAMEVE manifests as an areal of mats placed in CANK and activated by 2 hour long sessions on Friday and Samstag.

Participation in the workshop is free and by registration only. As places are limited, interested participants are invited to answer a few short questions to share their motivation. Please fill out the form by Monday, 26.1 at 11:00am; selected participants will be notified by email by Wednesday, 28.1 at 18:00.