HEKLER ASSEMBLY READINGS GROUPS
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
The pandemic is a portal, Arundhati Roy
HEKLER ASSEMBLY is a transnational space for cultural workers to share, discuss and collectively imagine new ways of instituting based on the principles of self-organizing, community care, critical thinking, political education, and healing as commons. Assembly includes reading groups, conversations with practitioners, and the ANTI-FEAR series. With alternating hosts who bring their questions to the assembly, we share practical, historical, and theoretical knowledge about collaborative, pedagogical, and governing models established in response to historical and ongoing political repression. The aim is to learn about radical hospitality and conviviality, eco-centered community organizing, instituting, and art practices that showcase the symptoms we need to transform. We consider the questions of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, ethnicity, religion, and the state to be integral to all of these topics. We continue asking what can be the role of arts now and in the future.
ASSEMBLY Reading Groups are envisioned as a collaborative process where each of us can offer topics, readings, and case studies relevant to our practices, methodologies, and research, bringing different communities together. In this way everyone has an opportunity to present, moderate, discuss, and give feedback to each session practicing self-organizing and instituting. We take turns. We welcome thinkers/practitioners at different stages of their concerns and engagements, so we are helpful and inspiring to one another. The more specific you are with the feedback you need entering the conversation the better. These gatherings all serve as a catalyst for continuous collaborative work and community care, brainstorming how we can support each other, centering friendship and transnational solidarity, and reimagining of our forms of resistance. Below please find the recordings of previous assemblies each linked to the shared folder which includes selected readings, and a word document with a brief introduction to the Assembly, the hosts, and questions to reflect on. If you wish to give any feedback after listening, feel free to use bottom of the same document to share your thoughts, reflections, references, or any other feedback you find relevant to the conversation and assembly structure.
ARE YOU INTERESTED IN ASSEMBLY PARTICIPATION/HOSTING?
Assembly welcome artists, writers, curators, healers, researchers, educators, students, collectives, community organizers +++ who wish to participate in the conversations and/or present their projects and community needs. We are here to listen and conspire.
Contact: heklerke@gmail.com REGULAR ANNOUNCEMENTS ON HEKLER IG ACCOUNT.
When: July 31, 2020 4-6pm EST (New York) Zoom
Hosts: Center for Afrofuturist Studies (CAS), alea adigweme, manuel arturo abreu
Question for the Assembly: How do we make space for Land and People with complicated histories to "speak"? How do we decolonize self, time, and the future we co-create?
Participants: alma khasawnih, An Duplan, Bartira Bartii, Candida Pagan, Chantal Feitosa, Courtney Rae, Delaney Gale, Dellyssa Edinboro, Elizabeth Willis, Eryka Dellenbach, Hadley Galbraith, Jelena Antanasijević, Katelyn Hall, Katie Inman, Kearra Amaya, Gopee, Kelly Hoffer, Kendra Green, Marc, Mohammad Golabi, Nataša Prljević, Pablo Duran, Rashmi Viswanathan, Raymond Pinto, Rich Dana, Ryan Tucker, Serene Blumenthal, Yanique Norman
Selected Readings:
Link to the shared folder with selected readings, and a word document including a brief introduction to the Assembly, our hosts, and questions to reflect on.
Installing the Codex, alea adigweme
The Dead Book Revisited, Saidiya Hartman
In the Meantime, Temporality and Cultural Politics, Sarah Sharma
Against Type: Reading Desire in the Visual Archives of Dominican Subjects, Dixa Ramírez
Video and music selection:
manuel arturo abreu, Debajo del agua: the wake work of Enerolisa Núñez - a one-hour talk
manuel arturo abreu, Debajo del agua playlist
Additional Reading:
excerpt from manuscript on caribbean historiography, by alea adigweme
Shephard, Charles. An Historical Account of the Island of Saint Vincent. (London: W. Nicol, 1831)
dead mommas club, a conversation between Sirius Bonner and alea adigweme on life and living after losing a Black mother.
Davis, Martha Ellen. Diasporal Dimensions of Dominican Folk Religion and Music. Black Music Research Journal 32, no. 1 (2012): 161-91.
When: June 19, 2020 2-4pm EST (New York) Zoom
Hosts: Farideh Sakhaeifar & Krisztián Török
Question for the Assembly: Who constitutes the public space? How can we reimagine it? How do we claim the polyvocal narrative away from neoliberal agendas and towards sensitive communality?
Participants: Bilyana Palankasova, Carlos Kong, Caterina Stamou, Daniel Godínez-NIvón, Edith Lázár, Elsa Saade, Emma Rssx, Eryka Dellenbach, Eva Davidova, Farideh Sakhaeifar, Flaviu Rogojan, Hengameh Fallah, Isidora Žarković, Jelena Antanasijević, Jelena Prljević, Joshua Nierodzinski, Kazem Gouchani, Kiana Mashayekh, Krisztián Török, Luciana Solano, Lyra Hill, Mandana Mansouri, Meredith Drum, Mohammad Golabi, Milica Grbić, Nada El-Kouny, Nataša Prljević, Nechama Winston, Pablo Duran, Raed Rafei, Rami Dinnawi, Rashmi Viswanathan, Sonja Blum, Viviana Checchia, Yanique Norman Željka Blakšić
Selected Readings:
Link to the shared folder with selected readings, and a word document including a brief introduction to the Assembly, our hosts, and questions to reflect on.
Arthur Eisenberg, Some Unresolved Constitutional Questions. Essay included in Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space edited by Ronald Shiffman, Rick Bell, Lance Jay Brown, Lynne Elizabeth.
Ondine Chavoya, “No Movies: The Art of False Documents,” Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self. Eds. Coco Fusco and Brian Wallis. Abrams/ICP. pp. 199–203. 2003.
Robert L. Pincus, “The Invisible Town Square: Artists’ Collaborations and Media Dramas in America’s Biggest Border Town,” in Nina Felshin (editor), But Is It Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism (New York: AC Institute/Anachronies), new edition available in April 2020
About art and the ways we look at the world by h.arta group (2008)
Mihaela Michailov, “Evacuate the area Zero space” in Joanna Szymajda, European Dance since 1989, Routledge, 2014.
“Madalina Dan in conversation with Cristiane Bouger”, Critical Correspondence, Moving Dialogue Exchange - Romania. (2011)
Additional Reading:
Cristiane Bouger, “In the making of a new revolution” (2011)
Iulia Popovici and Raluca Voinea, ‘“There is another kind of training and another kind of knowledge in every body”: Interview with Alexandra Pirici’, in Metaphor - Protest - Concept : Performance art from Romania and Moldova, 2017, 224–38 (READ 224-28)
When: Friday May 22, 2020 4-6pm EST (New York) Zoom
Hosts: Rashmi Viswanathan & Dena Al-Adeeb
Question for the Assembly: How do our different pasts affect our sense of (possibility in) the present and future? Can we reconcile our many different pasts to imagine new types of collective futures?
Participants: Alex Dabi Zhevi, Amina Ahmed, An Duplan, Ava Ansari, Bojana Videkanic, Caterina Stamou, Cori Beardsley, Deborah A., Eryka Dellenbach, Eva Davidova, Farideh Sakhaeifar, Gabino Abraham Castelan, Jelena Prljevic, Joshua Nierodzinski, Kazem Ghouchani, Krisztian Torok, Mandana Mansouri, Maryam & Allia, Nada El-Kouny, Natasa Prljevic, Nechama Winston, Paul Qaysi, Raed Rafei, Sahar Delijani, Shimrit Lee, Sholeh Asgary
Selected readings:Link to the shared folder with selected readings, and a word document including a brief introduction to the Assembly, our hosts, and questions to reflect on.
GOSWAMI, MANU. Imaginary Futures and Colonial Internationalisms. The American Historical Review, vol. 117, no. 5, 2012, (pp. 1-4, stop before 'Benoy Kumar Sarkar' paragraph)
Kaviraj, Sudipta. An Outline of a Revisionist Theory of Modernity. European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes De Sociologie / Europäisches Archiv Für Soziologie, vol. 46, no. 3, 2005, (pp. 497-498 stop before II, pp. 500 - 508)
Adnan, Etel. The Arab Apocalypse
When: May 8, 2020 4-6pm EST Zoom
Hosts: Nataša Prljević & Joshua Nierodzinski
Focus: Introduction to the Assembly. Discussion about the current and future state of (art) instituting.
Participants: Anna Parisi, Boshko Boskovic, Caterina Stamou, Eryka Dellenbach, Eva Davidova, Farideh Sakhaeifar, Giovana Schluter Nunes, Janna Dyk, Maja Bekan, Nechama Winston, Rashmi Viswanathan, Sanja Vasić, Sonja Blum
Selected readings:
Link to the shared folder with selected readings, and a word document including a brief introduction to the Assembly, our hosts, and questions to reflect on.
Maria Lind: Why Mediate Art?, with artwork by Marysia Lewandowska, Ten Fundamental Questions of Curating
Dipti Desai: Artistic activism in dangerous times: Teaching and learning against the grain (Introduction)
Chuz Martinez: Octopus in Love, e-flux journal #55
New Worlds — The Democratic Self-Administration of Rojava & New World Summit (Studio Jonas Staal)
When:June 26, 2020 4-6pm EST (New York) Zoom
Hosts: Raed Rafei & Carlos Kong
Question for the Assembly: With lockdowns and sweeping racial justice protests, Pride this year will certainly be different. For years now, voices have risen against the cooptation of LGBTQ rights by neo-liberal capitalism. Is the moment finally ripe to reclaim queerness as a radical force of worlding and future-making? For those of us living outside increasingly-barricaded western nations, what does queer pride look like? Can we think of forms of “queer ideality” that are not rooted in a western ideology of private citizenship dissolving traditions and communities?
Participants: Abdullah Qureshi, An Duplan, Bošhko Bošković, Carlos Kong, Caterina Stamou, Eryka Dellenbach, Emma Rssx, Eva Davidova, Farideh Sakhaeifar, Hengameh Fallah, Janna Dyk, Jelena Antanasijević, Joy Yayid, Lyra Hill, Michael Mersereau, Mandana Mansouri, Maryam & Allia, Nataša Prljević, Raed Rafei, Sebastjan Brank, Sholeh Asgary, Volkan Dincer, Walid Mohanna, Yanique Norman, Yasemin Bahar
Selected Readings:
Link to the shared folder with selected readings, and a word document including a brief introduction to the Assembly, our hosts, and questions to reflect on.
Mikdashi, Maya, and Jasbir K. Puar. “Queer Theory and Permanent War.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 22, no. 2 (2016): Pages 215–22
Anjali Arondekar, The Sex of History, or Object/Matters, History Workshop Journal, Volume 89, Spring 2020, Pages 207–213
Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York University Press, 2009. (Page 1 from Introduction ONLY)
Queer Utopia : From Stonewall to Tell Garden - Raed Rafei (Text)
A Year After the Rainbow Flag Controversy - Sarah Hegazy
https://madamasr.com/en/2020/06/15/opinion/u/a-year-after-the-rainbow-flag-controversy/
Videos & Artworks:
On a Day Like This - Mohammad Shawky Hassan
Queer Utopia: From Stonewall to Tell Garden - Raed Rafei
WA WAILA (oh torment) - Monira Al Qadiri
#LGBTİFilmleriYasaklanamaz - Kanka Productions (a feminist collective of woman and trans people in Istanbul)
Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth: 533 شھیدة سنا محیدلي - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
When: Friday May 29, 2020 4-6pm EST (New York) Zoom
Hosts: Eva Davidova, Natalia Ivanova Mount, Darko Vukić
Question for the Assembly: How to work with the absurd, the visceral, and the subconscious to destroy "the given”, to reject pre-determinacy? How can the local body of agents make me better? Is the human only exit out?
Participants: Alex Dabi Zhevi, Alisa Yang, Amanda Grossman, Amina Ahmed, Dakota Gearhart, Emma Rssx, Eryka Dellenbach, Farideh Sakhaeifar, Janna Dyk, Jelena Prljevic, Kristen Zaremba, Krisztian Torok, Lawrence Bogad, Lulu Meng, Maryam & Allia, Meredith Drum, Milica Grbic, Nada El-Kouny, Natasa Prljevic, Nechama Winston, Pablo Duran, Paul Qaysi, Pauline Batista, Sahar Sephadari, Sanja Vasic, Sonja Blum
Selected readings:
Link to the shared folder with selected readings, and a word document including a brief introduction to the Assembly, our hosts, and questions to reflect on.
Seeing, Naming, Knowing by Nora N. Khan
Commons Reframing, Reframing: The value of art and fair labor in the context of a sharing economy by Natalia Ivanova Mount
Being in an environment: a performative perspective by Andrew Pickering
Human Centipede by Reza Negarestani
Auto automata: commentary drift by Darko Vukić
When: May 15, 2020 2-4pm EST Zoom
Hosts: Edith Lázár & Flaviu Rogojan, co-founders of Aici Acolo curatorial collective from Cluj, Romania
Participants: Anna Harsanyi, Bilyana Palankasova, Carlos Kong, Eloise Sherrid, Eryka Dellenbach, Eva Davidova, Farideh Sakhaeifar, Giovanna Olmos, Jelena Antanasijević, Jelena Prljević, Krisztian Török, Mohammad Golabi, Nechama Winston, Sanja Vasić
Question for the Assembly: We would like to open the discussion starting from the fact that we now want to expand our activities, to include more alternative education, more support for artists in the form of discussions, time for research, grants, or residencies, moving away from exhibiting works on walls, in order to involve people more. What are great formats and methods you feel are working in your own context, as well as those that didn't. What types of connections will now work best, and how this should also be adapted to non-pandemic times for Eastern European (and not only) countries where travel is more difficult?
Link to the shared folder with selected readings, and a word document including a brief introduction to the Assembly, our hosts, and questions to reflect on.