Johanna Maj Schmidt (*1992) is an artist and PhD researcher of far-right internet meme culture from Leipzig. Working at the intersection of film & performance and analogue forms of image-making like drawing & painting, as well as text, she is interested in traversing epistemological boundaries/different modes of knowing and seeing. Both in her academic and artistic work, she explores how the online sphere is shaping our social co-existence, and vice versa, and the inner contradictions at the heart of any (individual/collective) identity.
EDUCATION
Since 2018
2017 – 2022
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2014 – 2015
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2010 – 2014
2012 – 2013
PhD candidate in the post graduate programme “Rightwing Populism – Authoritarian Developments, Far-Right Discourses, Democratic Responses”, Universities of Leipzig & Cologne
Diploma in Media Art (First), Class Expanded Cinema - Clemens von Wedemeyer, Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig
MA Art and Politics (Distinction), Goldsmiths University of London; Intercollegiate Student at the MSc Programme Comparative Political Thought, SOAS, London
BA Politics, English-Speaking Cultures, Performance Studies (First), University of Bremen
Exchange Student at Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Cracow
SHOWS/SCREENINGS (selection)
2022
2022
2022
2021
2021
2021
2021
2021
2021
2020
2019
2019
2019
2019
2018
2018
2017
2017
2017
2016
2016
2015
2015
2013
2012
Fugitive Knowledges, Ghent University, Belgium
YUP - Young Urban Performances Festival, Kunsthalle Osnabrück
We Must Be Mistaken, solo show at Galerie KUB, Leipzig
Conditions of a Necessity – The Exhibition, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden
Outside the Box - GALA, Conne Island, Leipzig
Plateau, 17. Lindenow Festival, Plateau.Evji, Leipzig
Grabeland (Future Splendors), KGV Buren, Leipzig
Was das Gespenst nicht kennt - Specters of the Afternoon, Villa Esche, Chemnitz
Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin for New Cinema & Contemporary Art (online video archive), Paris
Conditions of a Necessity – The Gathering, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden
1937 - 2017: Von Entarteter Kunst zu Entstellter Kunst, HGB Gallery, Leipzig
Screening- & Reading Event, Kino in Bewegung, with Karlheinz & Angela Steinmüller & Ann Cotten, Bautzen
Final Draft / Drift, 15. Lindenow Festival, Westpol Airspace, Leipzig
Am Nerv der Demokratie, 5th Soundcheck Philosophie Festival, LOFFT, Leipzig
3rd NSK Folk Art Biennale, Trbovlje, Slovenia
Glam Slam! 2, Cabaret Voltaire, Athens
DOCUMENA - ΔΟΚΟΥΜΕΝΑ, 6th Athens Biennale for Contemporary Art, Athens
Queer-Indigenous Catwalk @The Transit of Hermes: The Athens-Kassel Ride (documenta14), Athens
Press Conference: Heart & Sword Division – Waiting for the Barbarians, 6th Athens Biennale for Contemporary Art, Athens
Lecture Performance, Goldsmiths University of London, London
Lecture Performance, SOAS School of Oriental and African Studies, London
Crystal Palace Group, Performance @Crystal Palace Park, London
The Show Don't Tell Show, The Bussey Building, London
OUTNOW Festival, Bremen
Freiland-Festival, Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, Bremen
TALKS/PUBLICATIONS/WORKSHOPS
2023
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2021
2021
2021
2021
2020
2020
2020
2020
2018
2018
2018
2017
2017
2017
2016
2016
2015
"Extrem rechte Memes über Greta Thunberg", workshop delivered together with Tabea Falk at the Public Climate School, University of Leipzig
"He Will Not Divide Us. Far-Right Memetic Warfare at the Limits of Liberalism", panelist at the international online conference "Current Constellations - Perspectives on Critical Theory in Contemporary Capitalism"
"Noooo You Can't Just Vaporize My Entire Armored Division" - Extrem rechte Meme-Reaktionen auf den russischen Angriffskrieg auf die Ukraine. In: Decker, Oliver/Kiess, Johannes/Heller, Ayline/Brähler, Elmar (Eds.), Autoritäre Dynamiken in unsicheren Zeiten. Neue Herausforderungen – alte Reaktionen? / Leipziger Autoritarismus Studie 2022. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag, 367-396. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365426664_Noooo_You_Can't_Just_Vaporize_My_Entire_Armored_Division_-_Extrem_rechte_Meme-Reaktionen_auf_den_russischen_Angriffskrieg_auf_die_Ukraine
"Have you stolen my dreams and my childhood? - Tiefenhermeneutischer Workshop über extrem rechte Memes zu Greta Thunberg", workshop delivered together with Tabea Falk at the globe22 Science Festival, University of Leipzig
"We Must Be Mistaken", artist talk at the conference "Fugitive Knowledges", Ghent, Belgium
"War War Never Changes" - Heroismus in rechten Memes, lecture in the seminar "Soziale Konflikte?
Körperbearbeitung zwischen Begehren und Gewalt", BA Psychology, Sigmund Freud University Berlin
"Extrem rechte Meme Reaktionen auf den Angriffskrieg auf die Ukraine", In: EFBI Digital Report 2022 - 1.
Available for download: https://efbi.de/files/efbi/pdfs/2022-1-EFBI%20Digital%20Report_final.pdf.
"Depth-Hermeneutic Meme Analysis: 'Triggered Feminist' - Antifeminist Propaganda or Misogynist Artefact?",
workshop delivered together with Charlotte Höcker in the MA programme "Screen Cultures", University of Oslo
"Meme-Warriors und Attentäter - Heldenbilder in extrem-rechter Internetkultur", lecture as part of a series of
presentations on the Halle synagogue shooting, https://www.burg-halle.de/hochschule/information/aktuelles
la/vortraege-zum-anschlag-von-halle-antisemitische-ideologie-memes-und-die-gesellschaftliche-mitte/,Halle
"Saving Heroism in the Online Sphere - The Heroic in Far-Right Internet Memes", In: Berkeley Center for the Right-Wing Studies Working Paper Series, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3zd6f7g9#main.
"Saving Heroism in the Online Sphere - The Heroic in Far-Right Internet Memes", Online Conference for
Research on Male Supremacism and Right-Wing Studies, Institute for Research on Male Supremacism &
Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, University of California, Berkeley
"Remember the Fallen - rechte Selbstironie in den 'Meme Wars' und das Verführungspotenzial von Anti-PC Humor". In: Freie Assoziation. Zeitschrift für psychoanalytische Sozialpsychologie, 23 (1 + 2), 112-116.
''When You're Telling Your Grandkids All About the Meme Wars You Fought in...' - The Invention of Online War Stories", Webinar of the SLA Committee on Language and Social Justice, American Society for Linguistic
Anthropology
"Altering Heroism - A Psychosocial Inquiry into Rightwing Internet Meme Culture", Online Working Group,
Center for Right-Wing Studies & Institute for Research on Male Supremacism", University of California,
Berkeley
"Maybe the real Reich was the friends we made along the way. Sehnsucht nach kameradschaftlicher Solidarität und Brüderlichkeit in den 'Great Meme Wars"', Online Conference, Universities of Munich, Tübingen, Cologne & Leipzig
"Alt-Knight'? - Die neue Rechte im Spannungsfeld zwischen dem 'Heroischen' und dem 'Postheroischen', Colloquium for Political Theory, University of Bremen
"The New Vertical". In: PaperWork Magazine, http://www.paperworkmagazine.com/, London.
"Kopfsprünge. Zwischen Nomadentum und Sesshaftigkeit - Ein Brief". In: Lagaay, Alice/Seitz, Anna (Eds.), Wissen Formen. Performative Akte zwischen Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kunst. Erkundungen mit dem Theater
der Versammlung. Bielefeld: transcript, 84-87.
"Weltkulturerbe oder Idolatrie? - Die Zerstörung von kulturellem Erbe im Irak durch den IS". In: Polylog, Zeitschrift für interkulturelles Philosophieren, 38, 103-115.
"A Show of Hyper-Piety? - IS' Destruction of World Heritage and the Outcry of the International Public", Performance Philosophy Conference "Ethos, Ethics, and Ethnography", University of Prag
"Grey in Grey". In: Archipelago, 4, 41. London.
"Worlding Heritage - The Politics of Objects", Internationale Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Interkulturelle Philosophie "Kraft, Macht und Gewalt der Bilder in interkultureller Perspektive", University of Vienna
"The Plural Temporality of the Notion of the Primitive", Postgraduate Conference "New Directions for Political Thought", SOAS University of London
"Worlding Heritage - The Politics of Objects", Postgraduate Conference "Political Theory at the Margins" Oxford University
PUBLICATIONS (EXHIBITION)
2021
Was das Gespenst nicht kennt – Specters of the Afternoon. Villa Esche, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz. Published by: Frédéric Bußmann, Angelika Waniek, Clemens von Wedemeyer
SCHOLARSHIPS
2018 – 2022
2011 – 2015
2012 – 2013
PhD Scholarship, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
Scholarship, Heinrich Böll Foundation
Erasmus Scholarship
MEMBERSHIPS
Since 2022
Since 2022
Since 2019
Member of the International Research Group for Psycho-Societal Analysis
Member of the Society of Psychoanalytic Social Psychology (GfpS)
Member of the artist-run initiative Kino in Bewegung/Cinema in Movement (http://kinoinbewegung.de), Leipzig