The WGNS was a series of gatherings for clarity and direction in a messy moment of distance and collapse. We came together so that we could learn from each other.
In the spring we learned together around a selection of texts, from bell hooks to Lamentations, Fanny Howe to Essex Hemphill.
In the fall, we considered INVENTORY. We spent time with new texts and the offerings of three guest artists: Katherine Agyemaa Agard Eyad Houssami Rebeca Medina
Week One - 10/19/20 On "our lot," the lives of plants, and sentimental politics. with Rebeca Medina Source Sheet here. Chat transcript here. Recap here.
Week Two - 10/26/20 On reading, writing, translating, and "native language." with Katherine Agyemaa Agard Guiding questions here. Chat log here. Recap here.
Week Three - 11/3/20 An inventory of feelings, the night before an election. with Rebeca Medina. Recorded only in our collective memory. Chat log here. Recap here.
Week Four - 11/10/20 Plumbing the ancestral tarot. with Katherine Agyemaa Agard. Chat log here. Inventory of images here. Recap here.
Week Six - 11/23/20 On knots, cords, umbilicals. What ties us down, together, gives us life. from Camila Marambio & Cecilia Vicuña, Slow Down Fast, a toda raja one and two From Bartenura on Mishnah Kilayim Chat log here. Recap here.
Week Seven - 11/30/20 On "speculation" and "unsettling." with Eyad Houssami Capek, R.U.R. excerpt here. Tuck & Yang, "Decolonization is not a metaphor" excerpt here. Chat log here. Recap here.
Week Eight - 12/7/20 There's a Nishnaabeg word I learned from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: biiskabiyang. "...the process of returning to ourselves, a reengagement with the things we have left behind, a reemergence, an unfolding from the inside out." Chat log here. Recap here.
~ Ann Lauterbach, "The Entangled Imagination: A Fictive Dialogue"
Working Group for a New Spirit, First Session, April 2020
Turning April 8, 2020 Texts: Pirke Avot 5:22 Fanny Howe, from "Bewilderment"