21.11.23, 19:30, Simon(e) van Saarloos

Abolish Age: maak een einde aan leeftijd!

When we oppose ageism, it is usually about discrimination against older people. The limiting effect of age is often only discussed when you are old and the end seems in sight. Van Saarloos shows that age discrimination affects everyone: even at birth, you are assigned an age.

Society is age-segregated, education is classified by age, voting rights and sexual capacity are legally dependent on age. Access to time is a white privilege and our thinking about sexuality, gender, class, disability, financial security and race is intertwined with a narrow understanding of age. This lecture puts an end to the sly, invisible way in which age promotes social inequality and makes it normal.

Simon(e) van Saarloos is the author of 'Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto'; 'Remembrance Remembered'; 'The Wilders Trial'; 'The Monogamous Drama' and 'I Virtue/Don't Virtue'. As a freelance curator, she organises artistic collaborations, public programmes and exhibitions, including the ABUNDANCE exhibition at Het Hem, the museum installation Cruising Gezi Park, a public conversation between Claudia Rankine and Pamela Sneed at the University of California, Berkeley, IDFA's 2022 and 2023 queer programme, the Juicy Refuge lecture series for Studium Generale at the Rietveld Academy, and the multi-year trans*national queer solidarity project Through The Window.

Van Saarloos also writes fiction, including the novel 'De vrouw die' and recent publications such as the short sci-if story 'Dreamdead Surrender' (Postmodern Culture Journal) and 'De Foetushemel', a play about abortion and violent resistance for Ulrike Quade Company at the Bellevue Theater Amsterdam. Hen participated in artistic residencies such as KAVLI Institute for Nanosciences, Deltaworkers New Orleans and Be Mobile Create Together, IKSV Istanbul. Van Saarloos currently lives in Berkeley, California.