This mini-workshop interrogates practices of censorship in the cultural sphere and recasts it as a way roads of artistic expression, knowledge and identity are foreclosed, both before and

at the moment speech occurs. Practices of censorship manifest in various forms and do not always directly originate from the sovereign or ruling groups, nor do they require overt coercion; it is nevertheless violent because it limits who can speak, whose knowledge is valued, and which identities are legitimated within society. Drawing on Judith Butler (1997), censorship constructs the ‘domain of speakability’, which ultimately shapes one’s survival as the subject

within the state. As such we would like to collectively interrogate the layers through which censorship operates and persists in the cultural sphere. As censorship is not only imposed from the outside but also internalized. We would like to reflect on the parts of our identity that we hide in our daily lives in order to feel safe. In other words, this workshop traces censorship from the visible (banning, surveilling and outlawing) to the invisible (social codes, self-censorship, silence, the unspoken). Questions that the workshops ask are: What remains unsaid? What does silence preserve? Which ideology and hegemonic structure does censorship protect? In what ways are practices of censorship violent? This workshop is a call to look and to listen. It makes the invisible visible and challenges the

assumption that freedom of expression is self-evident. It reveals that power is exercised not only through what is said and shown, but equally through what remains unseen and unspoken,

and that naming silence itself can become an act of waywardness.

The project moves at the intersection of artistic research, socio-political discourse, and aesthetic experience. 

About the Pulp Collective: 

The Pulp Collective (Rifka Fehr, Jasmijn Stam and Ellinor Strowel) is a transdisciplinary art collective, aiming to bridge academic research and artistic practice. Through different formats of artistic practice, such as workshops, exhibitions and events, we critically engage with existing norms and power structures. The term PULP represents the residues that ferment and cling on, serving as a metaphor for social and political structures, which we seek to engage with collectively. Previous events organised by the collective include I AM EVERY WITCH, a multimedia exhibition that explored the ties between feminist resistance histories and ecological renewal, hosted at Villa Vida in Vienna in March 2024. Followed by GAZE, a participatory exhibition featuring seventeen international contributors, held in Barcelona in March 2025. In December 2025, the collective designed and facilitated the Sound of Silence, a participatory workshop that critically engaged with various forms and mechanisms of censorship.