“...the body may hold more memory than the mind.... the mind too, is a fraction of the flesh.”¹

This means the body comes into being before the mind, but the mind is part of the body. The transformation of the physical body opens the capacity for thinking and conceptual understanding. I’m interested in the state of openness that comes with sweating, and how it relates to taking responsibility for the past—to create a present in which the past cannot be repeated. Sweating becomes a tool to connect motifs. The world is experienced through and with the body.

Can embodied experience lead to a deeper understanding of how to deal with the past, in a culture that exalts the mind over the body? The culture of remembrance is shaped by stone memorials and symbolic gestures.² What can sweat teach us about emotion and movement to introduce transformation? Sweat is the lens through which remembrance is discussed. It touches upon various areas of human and non-human life, forming an index.

I will unfold how sweat is received and what this reveals about power in society. Sweat, especially its smell, is politically charged—it recalls control, and therefore also fascist power over bodies and reflects fears of the leaking, fragmented, and uncontrollable body. These fears inform how the memory of the Holocaust is shaped in Germany. Shame, tied to both sweating and historical injustice, becomes a central concept. I explore shame as a political and affective tool, particularly in the context of nation-building and reckoning with fascist legacies.

Finally, I look at a concrete example of an artistic research project, the chase of “Radio Mende” to explore how learning from sweat could engage with living memory. If fascism is a state of the body, what is sweat for resilience to fascism?

1. “Elements Of Vogue ‘Dancer as Insurgent’ de Benji Hart,” CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, January 1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BB9BuCDBBY.

2. Hannah Della Bosca, “Sweat Speaks: Stories of embodiment, emotion, and erasure on a heating planet,” Emotion, Space and Society 53 (2024): 7, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2024.101051.

Author: Ronja Sommer