Four evenings around the theme of 'Shame'.

Breukvlakken in close cooperation with Perdu, is organising four evenings on the theme of ‘Shame’ following the series on ‘Fear’ and ‘Anger’.

You should be ashamed.

Every person knows shame: it is a normal feeling. While you would prefer to disappear, you actually become intensely aware of yourself, you suffer from an excess of stimuli, from blushing, from sweating, from ill-defined anger, in short, you feel overwhelmed by sensations.

Shame as an emotion you want to get rid of as soon as possible, the feeling hurts. To do so, you use the classic defence mechanisms like denying, rejecting, repressing, shifting and rationalising shame, talking it up.

Shame is social pain. What is left of you feels powerless, object of contempt, paralysed, passively afflicted by painful autonomous reactions. When you feel ashamed you, against your better judgment, heave emotionally with the enemy who thinks you are worthless. There is no more room for understanding yourself.It is the other person’s eyes that shame you. The gaze of the other begins with the mother, father, caregiver, grandfathers, grandmothers, community: through their looks and words, you learn how to behave to belong. What you can say and what to be silent about.

Shame acts as oil in a society. It keeps people in their place. But there may be reversals in who has the power to shame whom. #Me-too is an example of how power and shame relationships can change.

Shamelessness can be a defence through which someone does not feel the shame that would otherwise be unbearable themselves, but evokes it in bystanders, “the vicarious shame.”

High time to delve into Shame.

You can buy a passepartout ticket here.

Programme

Thu.21.12.2023: An Introduction to Shame

Thu.18.01.2024: Shame and Diversity

Thu.14.03.2024: Shame on the workfloor

Thu.16.05.2024: Shame and sexual violence

More detailed information about each event to follow soon.

You can buy a passepartout ticket here.