All PMVABF programs are archived! See below for full descriptions and click the ➜ to watch.


The Classroom / Friendly Fire

The Stage

images of past speakers and participants of the Contemporary Artists Books Conference
CABC

All PMVABF programs are archived! See below for full descriptions and click the ➜ to watch.

FULL SCHEDULE

  • Thursday, February 25th
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    • 11am–12:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      “Well, is it even a photobook, Dayanita?” with Dayanita Singh and Anshika Varma
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      Dayanita Singh published her first artist’s book Zakir Hussain in 1986, and in doing so, challenged contemporary notions of photography, book, and form. Five years later, Steidl announced the publication of her student maquette as a three-part book object—a witness to her influence in expanding the book form. In this conversation, Singh speaks with Anshika Varma, founder of the publisher Offset Projects based in New Delhi, India, on the significance of provoking a space between the publishing house and the art gallery, and the endless possibilities presented within it. Presented by Offset Projects. ︎➜

    • 12–2pm EST ; 24 hour loop – The Stage ︎
      Performances presented by Printed Matter and Noah Klein
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      with Laraaji, V. Vale, Sarah Louise, Mutual Benefit, Yasmin Williams, Nailah Hunter, and Lush Agave + Wild Anima. ︎➜

    • 12:30–2pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Beau Geste Press, in conversation with Felipe Ehrenberg, David Mayor, and Alice Motard
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      On the occasion of the newly launching publication Beau Geste Press, BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE shares insight into the practice and history of the eponymous publishing house. The program features two interviews between Alice Motard, the chief curator at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux and editor of this new publication, with David Mayor, and Felipe Ehrenberg, who are co-founders of this legendary publishing house. The interview with David Mayor was specially recorded for this years’ CLASSROOM. The interview with Felipe Ehrenberg was recorded back in March 2017 when Felipe visited a show on Beau Geste Press at CAPC just a couple of months before he passed away. Presented by BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE.

    • 2–3:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Dark Room, with Phyllis Christopher, Michelle Tea, and Laura Guy
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      In 1988, at the age of 24, Phyllis Christopher was drawn to San Francisco with her camera to capture a thriving lesbian counterculture involving sex parties, kiss-ins, and street demonstrations. Join this Book Works program for an intimate conversation about lesbian sexuality and documentary on the occasion of Phyllis Christopher’s debut solo publication, Dark Room: San Francisco Sex and Protest, 1988–2003 (Book Works, 2021). Christopher will be in conversation with acclaimed author, poet, and organizer (and contributor to the book), Michelle Tea, along with Laura Guy, editor of Dark Room. Presented by Book Works.

    • 3:30–5pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Call & Response, with Kerry Ann Lee, Giulia Vallicelli, Helen Yeung, and Ysabelle Cheung
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      Call & Response is a conversation between international publishers exploring how independent publishing facilitates community-building through punk, protest, and zine-making. Giulia Vallicelli (Compulsive Archive, Milan, Italy), Helen Yeung (Migrant Zine Collective, Aotearoa, New Zealand) and Ysabelle Cheung (independent writer, Hong Kong) will share their work and talk with Kerry Ann Lee (Red Letter Distro) about collaboration, correspondence, and solidarity over time and distances. Spanning over two decades and three continents, the panel will discuss the responsive nature of zine-making, distribution, and archiving as a means of survival and creative resistance from the sidelines. Presented by Red Letter Distro.

    • 5–6:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Subject to Change: the Syllabus as Publication, with Collective Question
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      The syllabus is a utopian publication. It is asked for and given, and in this exchange it figures as a kind of contract, perhaps even a form of evidence, or a standard against which to measure progress. It directs, draws lines, outlines. It acts like a script, a score, notation, an aid to performance. It's revised each semester to pretend it did something that it didn't do, just in case someone checks, with a hope that this revised version will go the way you want the next time, so that what you thought could have been becomes real. It projects and aspires but is also fraudulent and knows it. This discussion with Collective Question (Chris Lee, Steven Chodoriwsky, and Julie Niemi) is based on their research into Tolstoy College, an anarchist educational community that was part of the University of Buffalo from 1969–1985. Presented by The Southland Institute (for critical, durational, and typographic post-studio practices).

    • 6:30–8pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts
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      Editors Christopher K. Ho and Daisy Nam will lead a conversation with Mel Chin, Aruna d’Souza, Hyperlink Press, and Patrick Jaojoco, all contributors to Paper Monument’s new anthology, Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts. Chronicling everyday lives, dreams, rage, family histories, and cultural politics, the seventy three letters collected within ignite new ways of being and modes of creating at a moment of racial reckoning. The panelists will discuss Best!'s origins, how the project shifted throughout 2020, the intimacy and complexity of the epistolary form, and the urgency of moving beyond and exploding open the model-minority myth. Presented by Paper Monument.

    • 8–9pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Transcendent Waves Sound Bath, with Lavender Suarez
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      Join sonic healer, meditation teacher, and artist Lavender Suarez for a sound bath, dedicated to the release of Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives. In this new publication, Suarez poses questions to the reader as well as offers scientific evidence and personal anecdotes, all to make the case for the importance of listening and the positive impact it can have on our creative lives. Presented by Anthology Editions.

  • Friday, February 26th
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    • 10:30am EST – CABC ︎
      Books on Places & Books from Places. An Unbalanced Equation, with Briony Anne Carlin, Moritz Neumüller, Azu Nwagbogu, and Nelson de Arrellano
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      Some of the most recognized artists’ books dealing with geographical regions were not made by an artist from that place. This round table will analyze the problematic relationship epitomized in such books. It will explore the breadth of these photobooks depicting countries including India, Cuba, or Nigeria, prioritizing photobooks made with artistic intent (as opposed to photographic travel books).

    • 11am–12:30pm EST – The Classroom︎
      Photography in the Sensorium, with Fia Backström, Pradeep Dalal, Shannon Ebner, and Sara Greenberger Rafferty
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      For the 2019 MFA symposium “Teaching Photographs” at Pratt Institute, artists Fia Backström and Pradeep Dalal organized a workshop in which they proposed “some . . . strategies on how to situate images by building context beyond representational pointers: presentation, discussion, and practical exercises.” To launch their new publication, PPI #2, Photography in the Sensorium, Backström and Dalal will be joined in conversation with Shannon Ebner and Sara Greenberger Rafferty. In this book, the artists offer examples from their own photographic practice as case studies, breaking down and interweaving their individual approaches to knowing, handling, and naming the circumstances out of which their work emerges. This is the second issue in the series Pounds Per Image (PPI), edited and published through the Pratt Photography Imprint, led by Shannon Ebner. Presented by Pratt Photography Imprint and Dancing Foxes Press.

    • 12-6pm EST ; 24 hour loop – The Stage ︎
      Performances presented with Papi Juice
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      DJ sets by: Oscar Nñ, Adam R, Tygapaw, Equiss, Morenxxx, plus Mohammed Fayaz's Visual ASMR, and She Finally Caught A Breath.

    • 12:30–2pm EST – The Classroom︎
      Media Burn Ant Farm and the Making of an Image, with Chip Lord, Connie Lewallen, Steve Seid, Tanya Zimbardo, Igor Vamos, and Doug Hall
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      Media Burn Ant Farm and the Making of an Image is a recently published monograph on Ant Farm's sensational 1975 performance, Media Burn. This program will start with film footage of the event at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on July 4, 1975. Connie Lewallen (Berkeley Art Museum Curator) will introduce and contextualize the famous event, and Tanya Zimbardo (SFMOMA Assistant Curator of Media Arts) will moderate a conversation between Ant Farm member Chip Lord and the publication’s author Steve Seid (former Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Archive Curator), along with Doug Hall (artist) and Igor Vamos (RPI). Presented by RITE Editions and Inventory Press.

    • 3pm EST – CABC
      Artist’s Book Criticism Beyond the Book, with Aaron Cohick, Johanna Drucker, Megan N. Liberty, and Levi Sherman
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      As more artists’ books are exhibited, it is increasingly important to understand how the institutional context in which they are shown, from bookstore spaces to museum vitrines, helps and hinders criticism in the field. This panel aims to extend criticism beyond the individual book and address the interconnected institutions and power structures that form the field of contemporary artists’ books.

    • 3:30–5pm EST – The Classroom
      Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica, with Charmaine Nelson, David Hartt, Frances Loeffler, and Jonathan Middleton
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      This conversation takes up the subject of artist David Hartt’s recent poster project for Art Metropole, designed as an advertisement for Charmaine Nelson’s book, Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica (Routledge, 2016). These wheat-pasted posters, soon to be on the streets of Toronto, incorporate a photograph Hartt made in Jamaica and uses the language of guerrilla street-art advertising campaigns to promote an academic text that confronts the history of systemic racism in pre- and post-colonial Canada. Hartt’s project points to his own perspective as a Black Canadian now living in the United States, responding to recent events in the US, but also to how these histories are usually suppressed, and how systemic racism continues to be deeply embedded within Canada as well. Presented by Art Metropole.

    • 5pm EST – CABC
      Critical Convening on Terminology and Contextualizing Historic Material, with Megan N. Liberty, Corina Reynolds, Levi Sherman, David Solo, and Vivian Sming
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      How does inadequate, inconsistent, or unclear terminology limit our ability to write critically about artist’s books? How can and should we recontextualize historical artist’s books? After a brief introduction, we invite you to join the founders of BAR and a group of international guests in this convening as we split into small breakout groups to explore these questions and work on developing recommendations.

    • 5–6:30pm EST – The Classroom
      Sasha Phyars-Burgess in conversation with Texas Isaiah and Zora J Murff
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      Sasha Phyars-Burgess joins Texas Isaiah and Zora J Murff on the occasion of her new publication, Untitled (Capricious, 2021). The conversation will consider each photographer's individual practice as they relate to themes from the monograph form, the impact of protests against police brutality in 2020, and the rising institutional interest in Black artists at-large. Sasha Phyars-Burgess’s Untitled, spans three bodies of work, from affecting studies on diaspora, family, and place to revolving social phenomenons in which energy, beauty, and power meet. The monograph also includes poems by Ser Alida and Aurora Masum-Javed, a conversation between Sasha Phyars-Burgess, Juliana Huxtable, and Carolyn Lazard, and an essay by Bill Gaskins. Presented by Capricious.

    • 6:30–8pm EST – The Classroom
      Four Decades with BOMB Magazine
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      Join BOMB's founder and editor-in-chief, Betsy Sussler, for a conversation with past contributors and artists as they revisit the history of the magazine. Born on the kitchen table of New York’s downtown scene in 1981, BOMB was committed then, as it is now, to delivering the artist’s voice and conversations between artists. Join us for a rare look behind the scenes of BOMB and its genesis, with a Q&A at the end to answer questions about the magazine’s history as well as for those looking to start their own art publication. Presented by BOMB Magazine.

    • 8–9pm EST – The Classroom
      Richard Jackson: Works with Books
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      In tandem with a comprehensive exhibition of books and printed matter about the artist Richard Jackson at Hauser & Wirth's Booklab, Art Catalogues presents a discussion with the artist as he takes us through the exhibition to highlight some of the materials on display. The presentation includes his new monograph, featuring an extended chronology of Jackson’s work by Art Catalogues’s Dagny Corcoran, as well as books that made an impact on his artistic practice—ranging from Duchamp to hunting magazines from the 80s. Presented by Art Catalogues.

  • Saturday, February 27th
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  • Sunday, February 28th
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    • 9am EST – Friendly Fire
      FESTAC ‘77 Mixtape
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      Early in 1977, thousands of artists, writers, musicians, activists, and scholars from Africa and the Black diaspora assembled in Lagos for FESTAC ’77, the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. With a radically ambitious agenda underwritten by Nigeria’s newfound oil wealth, FESTAC ’77 would unfold as a complex, glorious, and excessive culmination of a half-century of pan African cultural-political gatherings. In this mix, Chimurenga decomposes, arranges, and reproduces the sound-world of FESTAC ’77 to address the planetary scale of the event, alongside the personal and artistic encounters it made possible. Can a past that the present has not yet caught up with be summoned to haunt the present as an alternative? Presented by Chimurenga.

    • 10am EST – Friendly Fire
      Mutual Aid Networking, with Bryan Villalobos, Zenat Begum, Isaac Miller, and Naomi Lawrence
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      8-Ball Community holds a conversation around mutual aid in NYC; how the pandemic and social uprising has impacted—and in many ways, jump started—this critical work. The conversation includes Bryan Villalobos of Public Assistants, Zenat Begum of Playground Coffee Shop, Isaac Miller of Friend of a Friend and EV Loves NYC, moderated by artist, chef, former 8-Ball Board Member and meal planner for EV Loves NYC, Naomi Lawrence. Presented by 8-Ball Community.

    • 11am EST – Friendly Fire
      Tending to the Present: Care & Pace Hour, with Gaynell Meij, Lorenza Perelli, Ashley L. Schick, John Caserta, Barbara Bryn Klare, Maria Epes, and Alex Muck
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      This program is a compilation of recent submissions from geographically dispersed ILSSA members, offering opportunities to reframe each moment through a series of brief reflective exercises, readings, offerings, and meditations centered on care and pace—two themes that emerged from the 2019 call-and-response project, “ILSSA Frameworks.” Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA) is a union for reflective creative practice and publishes participatory projects through the mail. Featuring contributions by Gaynell Meij, Lorenza Perelli, Ashley L. Schick, John Caserta, Barbara Bryn Klare, Maria Epes, and Alex Muck. Presented by Impractical Labor (ILSSA).

    • 11:30am EST – Friendly Fire
      Tributes to Frederick Weston, with Samuel R. Delany, Devin Morris, Svetlana Kitto, and LJ Roberts
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      Visual AIDS celebrates the latest installment of their DUETS publication series, featuring the artist and poet Frederick Weston (1946–2020) in dialogue with the esteemed writer Samuel R. Delany. The book features a wide-ranging dialogue, reflecting on Weston and Delany's overlapping histories in Times Square, the deep impact of AIDS on their creative practices, and the ever-changing intersections of race, sex, language, and art. The book launch features tributes to Weston and reflections on his artwork from Samuel R. Delany, Svetlana Kitto, Devin N. Morris, and LJ Roberts. Presented by Visual AIDS.

    • 12–2pm EST ; 24 hour loop – The Stage
      Performances presented by Printed Matter and Noah Klein
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      with Sonic Jeel, as they lay, Maral, Kohinoorgasm, and Anna Luisa Petrisko (ALL TIME STOP NOW).

    • 12:15pm EST – Friendly Fire
      Community Supported Art
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      We exist in an “Art World” where community engagement is often perceived as an unfortunate but necessary hurdle on the path to grant funding. Art-school trained artists have to think long and hard about how to integrate community into their work. At Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and Interference Archive, we believe we’ve turned this perception on its head. Community is at the very heart of what we do. Without it, we wouldn’t be the artists, designers, and cultural workers that we are. Taking the name from Justseeds' art CSA program, this event brings together a panel of co-op members to discuss the role of community in their art practice. Presented by Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and Interference Archive.

    • 1pm EST – CABC
      Outsider Book Arts: Contemporary and Historical Approaches to Alternative Publishing Practices, with Meghan Forbes, Sherese Francis, and Christina Long
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      This panel considers how the book object and magazine builds and nurtures communities outside of institutional frameworks. It references in its title Audre Lorde’s book of essays, Sister Outsider, and makes use of the term of Outsider Arts within a frame of agency and affirmation.

    • 1:45pm EST – Friendly Fire
      The Foot
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      Join Bread and Puppet as they perform The Foot, a historical Bread and Puppet Cantastoria or picture story, in a reimagined rendition utilizing the letterpress book printed in their own Press. Presented by Bread & Puppet.

    • 2pm EST – Friendly Fire
      Dreams of Anarchy and the Anarchy of Dreams: Adventures at the Crossroads of Anarchy and Surrealism, with Ron Sakolsky
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      The wild current of anarchy runs deeply throughout the oneiric river of surrealism. Here is a book of dreams set in motion by the myriad historical and contemporary interactions between surrealism and one of its most marvelous accomplices: anarchism. Ron Sakolsky’s magnum opus, a vast (600 pages) and comprehensive critical history, carefully documents the fleeting, and sometimes lengthy, troubled affiliations with anarchism. It features scores of surrealist legends in France, Spain, North America, and elsewhere, as well as Trotskyism, Stalinism, council communism, anti-fascism, and Indigenous cultures. Presented by Autonomedia.

    • 3pm EST – CABC
      Nine Artists | Nine Months | Nine Perspectives, with Adjoa Burrowes, Julee Dickerson-Thompson, Pamela Harris Lawton, Francine Haskins, Gail Shaw-Clemons, and Andrea Kohashi
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      Centered on the conception and gestation of a collaborative artists’ book project, this panel looks at the book as an instrument of resiliency and object of desire for African Americans once denied the right to read, write, and own their narratives.

    • 3pm EST – Friendly Fire
      I'm Not Listening (Queers Talking Shit), with Peter Cramer and DJ Econ
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      I'm Not Listening (Queers Talking Shit) is a media performance and forum hybrid driven by the dissociative interactions of Peter Cramer & DJ Econ, with invited guests. The satire ties together 40 years of creative activism and our collective energy expressing who we are, where we come from, and where we’d like to go. Produced by Peter Cramer, Victor FM Torres, and Jack Waters. Sounds: DJ Econ and NYOBS, NYC’s terminally-queer noise-goth band. Presented by Allied Productions, Inc. and Le Petit Versailles.

    • 4pm EST – Friendly Fire
      Salones de Belleza. The Beauty Salons, with Kit Schluter, Jerónimo Rüedi, Robin Myers, and Maricela Guerrero
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      This program celebrates the release of Salones de Belleza. The Beauty Salons, an anthology exploring the eponymous bilingual reading series that brought together 68 poets from the U.S., México, and Latin America at large, between 2017–2019 at Aeromoto, an arts library in Mexico City. Salón de Belleza curator Kit Schluter and Aeromoto founder Jerónimo Rüedi will discuss the series’ origins and political intentions. This conversation will be accompanied by brief readings from American poet Robin Myers and Mexican poet Maricela Guerrero, translated into English by Robin. Presented by Gato Negro Ediciones.

    • 4:30pm EST – CABC
      Closing Plenary: The Temperature of Artists Book Criticism
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      The sessions and convenings over the past 3 days have explored a range of lessons and ideas around what artist book criticism and discourse is and can be. Join the CABC committee and other session speakers as they share and discuss their key takeaways from the conference and engage with the audience to further refine tangible actions for the community to take.

    • 4:45pm EST – Friendly Fire
      Avid Readers
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      Collocation: a phrase of two or more words that accompany each other more often than would occur by chance. Avid Readers is a program that convenes a group of different readers according to something other than chance, something like desire (the latin root of “avid”). Avid Readers is an experiment in reprinting. Avid Readers is a script for the performance of a collective reading. It is an elliptical construction of a theme in print. Avid Readers reproduces not only words but also the typographic form that words have taken in print and in history. We read together not as a ritual, but rather as the lucid collective enunciation of the texts assembled. Presented by Other Forms.

    • 5:45-6:45 pm EST – Friendly Fire
      Cooperative, Collective, and Collaborative Cultural Work Skill Share, with Press Press and the Institute for Expanded Research
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      In this workshop, participants will be invited to share challenges within various experiences of cooperative, collective, and collaborative cultural work. Through a skill share, the group will collectively brainstorm solutions and tools for overcoming various cultural, financial, and structural obstacles, with a focus on how the pandemic has affected strategies and processes of collective work. This workshop builds on the 2020 publication, Toolkit for Cooperative, Collective, and Collaborative Cultural Work, published by Press Press and the Institute for Expanded Research, and is based on two workshops that gathered Baltimore-based cultural organizers, artists, musicians, and community-oriented practitioners. By centering collective working methods that challenge capitalist ideologies and frameworks, Toolkit aims to honor and embrace our fundamental interconnectivity and interdependence as human beings. At the heart of this work lies the understanding that wellbeing, integrity, equity, and care are collective responsibilities. Learn more at toolkit.press. Presented by Press Press and the Institute for Expanded Research.

    • 6:45pm EST – Friendly Fire
      Prisoners’ Inventions & Abolitionist Organizing: Temporary Services in conversation with Mariame Kaba
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      In 2001, the group Temporary Services invited their incarcerated friend Angelo, from California, to draw and write about the different things he had seen other inmates invent. Angelo illustrated everything from immersion heaters with electrical plugs made from razor blades, paper clips, and popsicle sticks, to cooking methods for bologna jerky on built-in cell light fixtures. These drawings and writings became the book and widely exhibited project Prisoners’ Inventions, first published in 2003. An expanded reprint, published by Temporary Services’ imprint Half Letter Press is finally available after over 15 years. For this program, Temporary Services discusses the book and is joined by writer, organizer, and educator Mariame Kaba, whose work advocates for the abolition of the prison industrial complex. In the program, Kaba presents her latest book We Do This 'Til We Free Us; Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, which has just been released by Haymarket Books. The program concludes with a conversation between Brett Bloom and Marc Fischer of Temporary Services and Mariame Kaba about collaborating with incarcerated people and the complexities and hurdles we face in our shared organizing and publishing practices. Presented by Temporary Services / Half Letter Press.

    • 8pm EST – Friendly Fire
      Black Err/Or, with Derrais Carter, Anya Wallace, and Kandis Williams
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      This program is a conversation between Black Err/Or teachers, Derrais Carter and Anya Wallace, and Cassandra Press founder and editor-at-large Kandis Williams that explores drafts, punctuation, revision, and Black feminist poetics. In the hour, we will discuss process, practice, and criticism as it pertains to the creative exploration of Black interior life. Through Black Err/Or, we immerse ourselves in worlds of our own making, pursue lines of thought with no discernable end, and wade in ambivalence. Presented by Cassandra Press.

    • 9pm EST – Friendly Fire
      BURNING IXXUES
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      The BURNING IXXUES collection is an accumulation of over 100 zinesters from Hong Kong and overseas; it enhances our understanding of the most pressing social issues and movements from various parts of the world. The collection has been on tour in bookshops, museums, and art book events around the world since 2019. From political unrest to the pandemic, members of ZINE COOP will share their thoughts on this collection and how to move forward in a challenging time. Presented by ZINE COOP.

  

PROGRAMS