»Softer Hards« build on functional training with artistic research inquiries into bodybuilding. For this purpose, varying bodyweight exercises from calisthenics and resistance training are combined with theorizing impulses and experimental creative reflexions.
The intention of these full body workouts is the strengthening of bodily power, control and image within their political context – and a cultivation of emancipatory bodily sensations in the process.
Sporting practice, critical engagement, and poetic sensitization intertwine to examine the dialectic links between the sociological, psychological, and physiological dimensions of functional training. The resulting boundary crossings serve as a pragmatic strategy for enacting social change, shaping new forms of knowing about one’s own body and spelling out queer perspectives on fitness cultures.
