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  • Megan Hoetger, PhD
  • About

Megan Hoetger, PhD, Performing Colonial Toxicity

  • Conversational (8)
  • Curatorial (7) x
  • Editorial (8)
  • Exhibitionary (4)
  • Presentational (4)
  • Production (5)
  • Workshop (8)
  • Writing (14)

The conceptual and organisational labor of assembling peoples, practices, and ideas.

An archive of projects, collaborations, and engagements organized according to typologies of labor performed.

Upcoming

“Active Archives. On Performance Curatorial Research and Historiographic Method” in The Routledge Companion to Performance Art, edited by Lucian O’Connor, et al. (New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2025).

“Projections from the Archive. On Performances of Cinema, Its Archival Counterapproaches, and Performance Historiography,” in Relational Acts: Performance Practices and Media of Documentation, edited by Barbara Büscher, Franz Anton Cramer, and Ulrike Hanstein (Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming 2025).

Thought-sounds, in collaboration with Paula Montecinos Oliva and After the siren, before the bell (a traveling sound system by Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter). Hosted by de Appel, Amsterdam on 3 November 2025.

  • When Technology Was Female

    2024

    • Curatorial

    Part of:When Technology Was Female

    A person looks towards a pull down projector, where a film is being projected. The image shows a person in a full orange suit and hat.
    Three people watch a film being projected on a wall of a hallway space. Two of them are sitting down, while the other stands up at the bottom of the stairs.
    A film is being projected on a screen. The image shows a head shot of a masculine-presenting person with a moustache. The image also appears partly reflected on a mirror to the left.
    Dark space. Only the projection of a still from Věra Chytilová's film
    Dark space. Only the projection of a film is visible. The image shows a feminine-presenting person touching the head of another person.
    This is
    This is
    This is
    This is

    wtwf-handout.pdf [pdf, 370 KB] 

    Goethe-Institut event listing 

  • Active Archives: Performing Social Realities in Archival Contexts

    2022

    • Curatorial
    On top of a white background, the following is written in larger black text across the top
    Six people sit on stage around a low table. The first rows of the audience are visible.
    A group of people stand around the stage of an auditorium. Above them, an image of a person wearing earphones is being projected. Beneath it, to the right and to the left, two other projections show a slide with text, which reads
    Two people sit on stage. Above them, the face of a person against a dark blue background is being projected.
    A person sits in front of a laptop computer. Their reflection also appears on a glass in front. The image has an orange hue.
    Instagram story showing an orange light panel and some text.
    Schematic consisting of several small squares and some connecting lines.
    In a dark space, a person stands behind a control desk.
    Two sentences are projected in white on a dark space:
    People take their seats in a dark auditorium.
    Pink spotlights illuminate a dark surface.

    House of World Cultures event listing 

    full program recording 

  • How We Behave / An Archive of Radical Practice

    2021 – 23

    • Curatorial
    Collage made out of three items, against a white square background.
    White digital page.
    A black-and-white photograph of a group of people posing for the camera has white text on top, which reads
    Website page. At the top,
    Brown poster has been digitally imposed on top of a photograph of a garden. On the poster, different paragraphs of white text (on the right) correspond to different colours, which appear written on the left:
    A black-and-white photograph of three people posing for the camera has text in black around it. It reads
    Website page. At the top,
    Two people read an exhibition text, which appears inside a white poster on a red wall. At the top, the text reads in larger font
    Two people sit in front of screens. They both have headphones on. The person on the left touches the screen, in which there is a picture of a person and a purple block with one word inside. On the right screen, an image of a person wearing a moustache and headgear is visible.
    Three people sit around a wooden table. There are booklets and other printouts on the table. The two people with their backs to the camera are leafing through a booklet and a printout stapled at the top left corner. The printout shows the photograph of a person wearing sunglasses.
    Three people sit in front of three screens, wearing headphones. The screens all show different images of single people.
    A person sits behind a microphone. They are wearing a bright pink blazer and high heels, a lighter pink scarf and headgear and trousers and a top with pink hues. They are holding paper with their hands. There are also two sheets of paper on the floor, in between their feet. At the back, two other people sit behind another microphone.
    Two people stand next to a microphone. They are both holding paper and looking at each other.

    hwb-suely-rolnik-script.pdf [pdf, 32.06 KB] 

    hwb-ramallah-transcript.pdf [pdf, 527.08 KB] 

    How We Behave studio project 

    Grant Watson website 

  • Cinema for Houseboats

    2021

    • Curatorial

    Part of:Zone Collective

    On a deck, a group of people stand or sit in front of a screen where something is being projected. To their right, there is a playground with a slide, next to which two children and two adults are sitting. In the background, behind the screen, there is a river and two large buildings on the other bank. The sky is dark and several of the windows in the buildings have lights on.
    On a beige road, six creatures follow a smaller one. The body of the larger creatures is drawn as a white square, with two small round feet, a white semicircle for a wing, a black blob for the tail and a blue beak or antenna. The smaller one is rounder, drawn in blue and white. There are two tall telephone poles next to the road.
    Two rows of white squares, each with a L shaped leg underneath, and a blue horn on top, seemingly make up the body of a creature. On the bottom one, two semicircles and a black dot have been drawn to the left and to the right, facing the left side, seeming to represent the nose and an eye. On the top row, the semicircle faces the right. Besides the legs and the horn, there are also two thick black lines, near each of the legs.
    On a deck, viewed from above, a group of people stand or sit in front of a screen where something is being projected. To their right, there is a slide. In front of the screen, there is a red playground overhead ladder, behind which someone is standing, wearing headphones. In the background, behind the screen, there is a river and two large buildings on the other bank. It is dark and several of the windows in the buildings have lights on.
    A group of people is either standing or sitting, all facing the same direction. Behind them, there is an overhead ladder and other playground equipment. It is dark, and at the back, two buildings have several windows with the lights on.
    Photograph of a person, on top of which eyebrows and a moustache have been drawn in pen. These are exaggerated in size, much bigger than the face of the person.
    Two overhead projectors are projecting images on the wall. A person stands next to them, adjusting the contents on the stage of the left projector. Besides the table on top of which the protectors have been set, there are other tables in the space. The back of a person and the bottom leg of another one, who are sitting around these tables, are visible in the picture.

    more info on Vlado Kristl 

  • EXPRMNTL Nights

    2019

    • Curatorial
    Open booklet with light green pages. On the left, the date
    On top of a grey background, possibly a wall, the following text has been handwritten:
    Red square with letters in black, reading:
    A person is laying down with their right cheek on the floor, facing the camera. Behind them, several people stand up in a line, facing a different direction.
    The heads of four people are visible in a black-and-white photograph, which is in the shape of an incomplete circle, cut at the top. Above their heads, black text reads, in all caps,
    Green page with a photograph in the middle. The photograph shows one feminine and one masculine presenting person. They are shoulder to shoulder, but facing opposite directions. Below the photograph, large black text reads:

    EXPRMNTL documentary film homepage 

    more info on EXPRMNTL  

  • A Sentimental Punk: An Incomplete Kurt Kren Film Retrospective, 1956-1996

    2018

    • Curatorial
    Photo composition. In the background, there are several small black-and-white photos. Over it, in the middle, there is a transparent pink square. Inside it,
    Open case with a film camera stored inside. Several information has been written over it digitally, on the right side of the photo. At the top
    Grey background with two images. On the left, a notebook cover. There is a white box in the middle, where
    White page with text in black.
    Grey background with two images. On the left,
    Grey background with two images. On the left, there is a blurry photograph of four people sitting on or near a red couch. On the left, there is a handmade poster. Handwritten in black, the following information appears in bigger letters:
    White page with text in black.
    Grey background with two images, showing charts. There is text in black in the top right corner and the bottom left.
    Grey background with three prints. Each print is made out of three photographs of a person's face in close-up. On the prints on the left and right, the same image recurs. On the print in the middle, the top image is different to the ones below. There is some text in black under the images.
    White page with black text and a black-and-white photograph of a person on stage, holding a sheet of paper.
    Grey background with two images. One shows a stamp in front of a blue box and the other an envelope addressed to
    Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
    Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
    Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
    Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
    Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
    Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.

    The Lab event documentation 

    Canyon Cinema event listing 

    Kurt Kren filmmaker website 

  • Underground International: Kurt Kren and Tomonari Nishikawa

    2018

    • Curatorial
    White page. At the top, there is a black image with the words
    Black-and-white nature scene with shadows that make it difficult to discern. There appears to be some snow and bare trees.
    River with red bridge. There is green vegetation on the river banks. Several bars are out of focus, in the forefront of the photograph.
    Three people are sitting underneath the projection of an image. The person on the left is holding the microphone and gesturing towards the screen with their left hand. The image shows square paper with squares hand-painted in different colours. Each square has a number inside.
    Square paper with squares hand-painted in different colours. Each square has a number inside.
    Square paper with a hand-drawn timeline chart. The lines have different colours and some of them are marked with numbers.
    Square paper with a hand-drawn timeline chart. 29 lines appear, in 7 different colours, which appear as blocks.
    Square paper with several hand-drawn column graphs.
    A moving train is arriving to the platform. There is some reflections in the image, perhaps from double exposure.
    Three people sit under a screen. The person on the right is holding a microphone to their mouth. The other two people look towards them. There is an open laptop in front of the person on the left, and a low table with a water jug and glasses in front of the person in the middle.
    Into the Mass (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2007, 6 min., double projection 16mm, silent, color, USA) The visual was originally captured through two Super 8 cameras, which were attached on the pedals of a bicycle, through my ride from Marin County to San Francisco. The time-lapse footage was optically printed onto 16mm film afterwards, and the double projection would show a new landscape of the photogenic city. The ride ended after joining Critical Mass, an event occurs the last Friday of every month in San Francisco.
    Into the Mass (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2007, 6 min., double projection 16mm, silent, color, USA) The visual was originally captured through two Super 8 cameras, which were attached on the pedals of a bicycle, through my ride from Marin County to San Francisco. The time-lapse footage was optically printed onto 16mm film afterwards, and the double projection would show a new landscape of the photogenic city. The ride ended after joining Critical Mass, an event occurs the last Friday of every month in San Francisco.
    I buried a 100-foot (about 30 meters) 35mm negative film under fallen leaves alongside a country road, which was about 25 km away from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, for about 6 hours, from the sunset of June 24, 2014, to the sunrise of the following day. The night was beautiful with a starry sky, and numerous summer insects were singing loud. The area was once an evacuation zone, but now people live there after the removal of the contaminated soil. This film was exposed to the possible remaining of the radioactive materials. This project is made possible with funds from the Media Arts Assistance Fund, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, Electronic Media and Film, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; administered by Wave Farm.
    I buried a 100-foot (about 30 meters) 35mm negative film under fallen leaves alongside a country road, which was about 25 km away from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, for about 6 hours, from the sunset of June 24, 2014, to the sunrise of the following day. The night was beautiful with a starry sky, and numerous summer insects were singing loud. The area was once an evacuation zone, but now people live there after the removal of the contaminated soil. This film was exposed to the possible remaining of the radioactive materials. This project is made possible with funds from the Media Arts Assistance Fund, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, Electronic Media and Film, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; administered by Wave Farm.

    BAMPFA event listing 

    Tomonari Nishikawa filmmaker website 

    Kurt Kren filmmaker website