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Archive for October, 2017

As one component of our site-specific work, “A New Spelling of a Street: A Tribute to Audre Lorde,” within the exhibition “The Work of Love, The Queer of Labor,” at Franklin Street Works in Stamford the movie “A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde” was screened on August 16th, 2017.

Following is the invitation to the event:

Screening of “A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde”

Screening at Ferguson Library South End Branch 6:00 – 7:15 pm
Discussion about Lorde with UConn-Stamford Scholars until 8:00 pm

Litany is an opulent tapestry of history, poetry, music and politics.
– Ada Gay Griffin & Michelle Parkerson, Bomb Magazine

Franklin Street Works, in partnership with The Ferguson Library’s South End Branch, will screen the documentary A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde on Wednesday, August 16th from 6:00 – 7:15 pm at The Ferguson Library’s South End Branch.

The audience will be joined by UCONN professors Morgne Cramer and Grégory Pierrot, who are knowledgeable about Lorde’s work. They will introduce the film and lead a post-screening Q&A from 7:15 – 8:00 pm. The evening will end with a reading of several Audre Lorde poems performed by actress and UConn-Stamford alum Ashley Mondestin.

The screening is part of the educational programming for our current exhibition “The Work of Love, The Queer of Labor,” and one component in a commissioned art project for that show by the Swedish artist collective YES! Association / Föreningen JA! Their site-specific work, “A New Spelling of a Street: A Tribute to Audre Lorde,” aims to honor Lorde, who described herself as a “black, lesbian, feminist, warrior, poet, and mother.” In the 1950s Lorde worked at Keystone Electronics, located at One Dock St. in the South End of Stamford, where she also met her first girlfriend. YES! Association / Föreningen JA!’s project includes a request to change the name of Dock St. to Audre Lorde St. in honor of this important American figure. This program is designed to inform the community in South End Stamford and beyond about Lorde’s life, work, and history in Stamford, Connecticut.

The creators of A Litany of Survival, Ada Griffin and Michelle Parkerson, collaborated closely with Lorde during the last eight years of her life in an effort to create a rich, full-bodied portrait of Lorde worthy of her vital and lasting legacy. After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995, A Litany of Survival went on to win major awards at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Creteil Film de Femmes International Film Festival, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.

You can watch the trailer HERE, or read an article written on the film by creator Ada Griffin in Bomb Magazine HERE.

The South End Branch Library is located at 34 Woodland Avenue, Stamford, CT 06902.

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YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), séance #2, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info

YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2, as part of the group exhibition Performing Relationships, KV Leipzig, Germany. Curated by Krisztina Hunya and Daniel Niggemann.

Durational participatory action; wood table, 180 cm in diameter covered with 340 kg clay, wall drawing apprx. 2 x 3, 5 m, the board of KV Leipzig and other invited participants, recurring score including instructions and questions to engage with during weekly one-hour séances, 9 weeks, 2017.

For Performing Relationships YES! Association / Föreningen JA! suggested that a second version of All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you should be developed together with the board members at KV Leipzig. The exhibition was concerned with the conditions of and possibilities for collaborative processes within and beyond the artistic field and wanted to ask the following questions: Which roles, alliances and differences emerge through these working approaches and how can they be maintained and kept fluid at the same time? Can a non-hierarchical model for collective decision-making be established in a way that is sustainable? Where do the interests of active members and the public meet within an art association whose work straddles professional projects, ambitious leisure activities and growing responsibilities?

YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), séance #2, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info

The instructions / question that the board members were asked to engage with during the séances were as follows:

Opening evening: Unpack the clay. Place it on the table. Work it through until it covers the table
evenly. / What is a political decision?

Séances 1: Engage the clay with the Karl Marx quote: ”All that is solid melts into air”. / How do you make up a “we”? Are you friends right now?

Séances 2: Engage the clay with the Audre Lorde quote: ”I come from the earth‘s inside.” / Do you want to grow? What does growing do?

Séances 3: Make a fire! / Are you angry? Are you making trouble right now?

Séances 4: Engage the clay with the Sadie Plant quote: ”Those were the days when we were all at sea.” / Does this make you capable?

YES! Association / Föreningen JA! was present during the the opening and engaged in the first instructions / question.

YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), séance #2, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info

The first version of this project erupted from a brief and intense entanglement with Kristine Anthis in New Haven, CT, in the fall of 2016.

The title All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you is taken from Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993).

YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), installation view, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info

YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2” (2017), installation view, KV Leipzig. Photography: dotgain.info

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  • YES! Association / Föreningen JA! was an art collective, an artwork, an association, an art worker, an institution, a group of people working to overthrow the ruling system of heteronormative, patriarchal, racist, and capitalist power structures by putting into practice a structural redistribution of access to financial resources, space and time within the (art) field.
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    YES! Association / Föreningen JA!, All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you #2 (2017)
    A New Spelling of a Street – A tribute to Audre Lorde (2017)
     

    YES! Association / Föreningen JA!

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