Ren Mauney (they/them) is a queer performance artist, activist, and writer based between Berlin and London, originally from the unceded lands of the Siouan and Tuscarora people. They are currently an MA candidate in Art and Politics at Goldsmiths University of London. Their research is situated at the intersection of queer psychoanalysis and abolitionist activism, interrogating the "troubled traffic between psychic body and body politic" in relationship to the notion of "citizen" and its unconscious disciplinary effects on our soma. (Homi K. Bhahba) They are interested in the complexities of what makes us allegiant to what has been designed to harm us and the role of an anarchic body in disrupting carceral loyalties. Their performance practice is currently moving towards encounters between pedagogy and activism, using participatory structures to engage the public in interventions that unsettle the relationship to unconscious citizenship and nation state. Frantz Fanon, Sara Ahmed, Lauren Berlant, Michel Foucault, Felix Guattari, and Judith Butler are critical theoretical influences on their practice.
Ren frequently collaborates with queer artist Telmo Branco and they are currently in Saxapahaw, NC researching the participatory performance work MISTRIAL funded by the Map Fund and hosted by Culture Mill and The Fruit.
In 2023-24, Ren collaborated with Telmo in the Portuguese initiative Art and Democracy with the performance project FLÓBÉR, an interrogation of the intimate implementation of nationalism and coloniality through the contemporary heteronormative family.
Ren has also been supported by and collaborated with various international residency programs, performance spaces, and funding bodies including VAE Raleigh, Sismografo Porto, Goethe Institut Lisboa, Estudios Victor Cordon, Polo Cultural das Gaivotas, Hosek Contemporary Berlin, Joint Adventures/National Performance Netz, Fonds Darstellende Künste, Dachverband Tanz Deutschland, Stoerpunkt Munich, AckerStadtPalast Berlin, Cordillera Berlin, HERE Arts NYC, and others.