Trembling Worlds

Trembling Worlds — International Symposium on the Work of Édouard Glissant

With Lev Avitan, Sophie Bourel, Radna Fabias, Sylvie Séma Glissant, Baruch Gottlieb, Shivani Gowda, Nikima Jagudajev, Hamedine Kane, Hans Ulrich Obrist (online) & Asad Raza.

Trembling Worlds explores the ideas of Martinican writer and philosopher Édouard Glissant, whose work engages deeply with the legacies of colonialism and the ongoing relations that shape our shared world. Through poetry, theatre, and philosophy, Glissant offers decentering perspectives that embrace complexity, opacity, and difference rather than clarity and unification. His concept of relation—a trembling connection between beings—recognizes the beauty and necessity of unresolvable difference.

For Glissant, trembling is both fragile and powerful: a vibration within the earth and within ourselves, born from histories of violence and love. It signals our shared vulnerability and our capacity to remain open to one another, even in the face of devastation.

The symposium accompanies a year-long exhibition of Hans Ulrich Obrist’s illuminated archive of Glissantian materials. Bringing together artists, writers, and thinkers, Trembling Worlds is conceived as both reflection and experience of what Glissant called the poetics of relation: knowledge that is never fixed but always in movement and encounter.

The day weaves together readings, performances, and philosophical conversations, creating an archipelago of poetic and intellectual exchanges. Between sessions, participants and audience are invited to engage informally, catching fragments, losing threads, and finding new connections.

Convened and moderated by Baruch Gottlieb.

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