Goethe-Institut Chicago

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Hilarious, raunchy, and completely ahead of its time, CITY OF LOST SOULS captures the gender-defying American exiles who sought refuge in the 1980's Berlin club scene. Featuring star turns from trans icons Jayne County and Angie Stardust, this rock musical extravaganza follows a group of eccentrics and outcasts - including an erotic trapeze artist duo, an occultist spiritual therapist, and a nymphomaniac giving English lessons- who live and work at Berlin’s Hamburger Queen diner and connected boarding house. A major influence on HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, CITY OF LOST SOULS is a cult classic of queer no-budget filmmaking from iconoclastic auteur Rosa von Praunheim, one of the most prominent gay rights activists in the German-speaking world.

Light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public, but please register in advance and bring a state- or federally-issued photo ID for check-in in our lobby.

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Join us for an artist talk by Maya Nguyen, whose exhibition LATERAL ENTRANT is currently on view at the Goethe-Institut Chicago.
Light refreshments will be served. Please register in advance and bring a state- or federally-issued photo ID for check-in in the 150 N. Michigan building lobby.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Maya Nguyen is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on sound and diasporic making. Marked by migration from Hanoi, to Moscow, and now Chicago, her practice develops formal strategies to articulate experiences of lived ambiguity. Nguyen incorporates disparate (and often clashing) material sources into forms that remain conceptually indeterminate, such as performance-lectures, sound improvisation, and collaborative sculptures. Some favored materials include: speech fragments, mistranslations, body glitches, migratory routes, urban recordings, sounds imitating nature sounds, internet debris, baby babble, breast pump parts, and videos of daily life, among others. Her works are presented internationally, moving fluidly between galleries, sound venues, pop-up shows and universities, with recent shows at Watershed Art & Ecology (Chicago), Jack Straw New Media Gallery (Seattle), Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (Berlin), Saari Residency (Mynämäki, FI), Manzi Art Space (Hanoi), and recognition as Arts Club of Chicago Fellow 2025-26 and Karl Sczuka Radio Art Research Prize 2024 (SWR/Goethe Institute). Nguyen holds a BA in Philosophy/Comparative Literature from The University of Chicago and MFA in Sound from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Join us for the last in our Rosa von Praunheim retrospective series for a screening of his documentary TRANSEXUAL MENACE, which will be introduced by Northwestern University's TJ Billard.

This film takes its title from the name of "the most exciting political action group in the USA"—transgendered people who are defining themselves, demanding their legal rights, and fighting for medical care and against job discrimination. Considered by von Praunheim to be the “most fascinating [project] in my long life as a filmmaker,” TRANSEXUAL MENACE is a sensitive and carefully crafted portrait that deals with issues openly and honestly. “I was able to earn the trust of many who are often reluctant to be interviewed. Courageous people talked to me, who transitioned in such problematic professions as law enforcement and firefighting.” This film gives viewers remarkable insight into the home and work lives of transsexuals from many cultures and countries, including female-to-male transsexuals and those with families and children.

SPEAKER BIO
TJ Billard is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication and, by courtesy, the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. Outside of Northwestern, they are the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Applied Transgender Studies in Chicago and Editor-in-Chief of the Center's flagship journal, the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies. Dr. Billard is the author of Voices for Transgender Equality: Making Change in the Networked Public Sphere (Oxford University Press, 2024) and co-editor (with Marquis Bey) of The Oxford Handbook of Transgender Studies (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public, but please register in advance and bring a state- or federally-issued photo ID for check-in in our lobby.