A curriculum of community learnings

Whether protocols are explicit rules to navigate life or death situations or implicit codes of social conduct, they shape the ways in which we share space, interact within power structures, and relate to one another. The relation between protocols and the roles we assume or resist in encounters interest me, the processes of expectation that are involved in particular.

Convened by visual artist and curator Jeanne van Heeswijk, this online event is comprised of a series of collective exercises, interventions, and a musical performance. It will unfold as a score or set of protocols for sharing different realities, making the space of the not-yet a generative place for intimacy and commitment.

During a pandemic, when we can only safely gather in the disembodied atmosphere of a Zoom meeting and are otherwise subject to the protocols and commands of Artificial Intelligence, how might we use this fraught space to practice forms of radical kinship and being together otherwise?

When thinking about new conditions and boundaries for ‘the Not-Yet’, I am curious as to what a starting point for accessible and equitable protocols could be. I wanted to design forms of shared thinking that avoid a ‘leaning into’ the comfort of a familiar order of things, and encourage experimentation with feelings of disorientation, confusion, and amazement.

Contributions by composer Angel Bat Dawid, artist Adelita Husni Bey, performance designer Sandra Lange, and artist Joy Mariama Smith.

19052020 The New School | Vera List Center | New York | USA