DONHR Reading Group: Make or Break
Every Thurs 5-6pm from 8 Apr - 3 Jun 2021
The Department of Non Human Resources Weekly Reading GroupSessions: 5-6pm on the following Thursdays
8 April,15 April, 22 April, 29 April, 6 May, 13 May, 20 May, 27 May, 3 June 2021
Venue: In Lismore Regional Gallery & online Via Zoom.
To Join online via zoom: https://bit.ly/3dpNlCa
(Links to readings and access information to be posted here weekly)
Artists Make or Break will host a weekly reading group to explore a wide range of texts on sustainability, community and speculative futures. Texts will range from theory and non-fiction to kids stories, sci-fi and futurism, with recommendations sourced from within the Lismore community. Come every week or drop in to read, talk and imagine together.
Readers are welcome to gather in the Gallery each week, or join online.
TEXT REFERENCE INFO:
FINAL Week 9: The Synchronic Bleaks, with special guest Asphyxia (author of Future Girl)
When: Thurs 3 June 5-6pm
Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3dpNlCa
About the reading: Future Girl inhabits an imagined future centred around Piper, a Deaf teenager growing up in dystopic Melbourne. Her world and her personal power matures over a fast-moving text that inhabits pages of watery colour, graffiti, permaculture diagrams and angst-laden portraits. Author Asphyxia (who is a Lismore local) will be joining us for an Audlan-interpreted reading group this week to discuss her young adult fiction and the future it describes.
Reference info: pp.84-87 and pp.237- 239, from Future Girl, by Asphyxia (2020). Text link
Week 8: Swirling Tracks
When: Thurs 27 May 5-6pm
Chapter 1: ‘From time immemorial’, from Carpentaria, by Alexis Wright (2006). pages 1-7
About the reading: The first section of this sprawling, looping, time-bending novel by Waanyi author Alexis Wright describes the formation of land, river and ocean in the Gulf of Carpentaria to arrive a slightly surreal, alternate present. She ties together environment, politics, history and Country in ways that are both poetic and incisive, and frankly a total joy to read. This text gives a generous and unusual insight into Indigenous ways of knowing and learning from Country, Water and Land. Text Link
Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3dpNlCa
Week 7: Multi-species kinship.
When: Thursday 20 May, 5-6pm
Where: Online only Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3dpNlCa
Access to text: Chapter 6: ‘Sowing Worlds’, from Staying With the Trouble, by Donna Haraway (2016) click here>
About the reading:According to Haraway, we need to break down the divisions between humans, animals, organisms and technologies in order to survive. And importantly, in order to create a world that we want to continue to exist within. Seeds - both literally and metaphorically - are proposed as being key to this survival. In this chapter, Haraway talks through references to seeds and seeding in Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler, showing that sci-fi can be one of the best tools for showing us both the futures we fear, and the ones we want to move towards.
Week 5:
When: Thurs 6 May 5pm-6pm, book online or join via the zoom link below.
https://www.trybooking.com/BQUWP
Week 4: The Nature of Technology
Thursday 29 April, 5-6pm, hosted by guests Max Nimmo and Holly Ahern
Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3dpNlCa
Access the text: Waiting, wandering and wondering by Robyin Curtis here>
We are excited to introduce two guest hosts to the DONHR Reading Group this week, Max Nimmo and Holly Ahern. Holly and Max have selected a text for Week 4 from the book ‘Navigation: A Publication for Place…’, which provides a set of “framing principles analogous to those of a logbook”.
About the reading: Continuing our discussions around time, this week’s reading considers the "fast-fashion" technology industry. When used well, tech can help industries become more connected, efficient and sustainable. But what are the environmental impacts of rapid response consumerism, the exploitation of online markets and the energy consumption required for such immaterial things? How then does this appetite for change impact our experiences of time?
Reference info: Excerpt by Robin Curtis from ‘Navigation: A Publication for a Place without a Historical Center, Created Continuously Anew in Meetings and Events That Occur in Empowered Spaces, Simultaneously’, various authors (2018).
Week 3: Un-Telling Time
Thursday 22 April, 5-6pm
Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3dpNlCa
Week 2 readers have chosen the second DONHR reading, which we’ll meet to discuss online only (Zoom link above) on Thursday 22 April 5-6pm. Make or Break have chosen a second complementary reading, recommended to DONHR by Angela Goh.
About the readings: First up in Week 3 is an excerpt from Big Scrub Rainforest, written by Environmental and Earth Scientist Rodney Holland and recommended to the DONHR reading group by Mark Dunphy. In introducing us to the complex ecosystems of the Northern Rivers region, Holland makes us really feel the place with all our senses: the mud between our toes, the towering trees, the slowness of geological time contrasting with the violence of its volatile moments. We’ve paired this text with an excerpt from ‘Fatally Confused’, where cultural theorist Michelle Bastian speaks eloquently of the disconnect between nature and culture when it comes to Western understandings of time, and the implications of this for our ability to properly internalise the urgency of climate crisis.
Text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xJ4pbzD1cg8vkxsdjECdc24RcoLwlmFw/view?usp=sharing
Reference info: Excerpts from ‘The Big Scrub Rainforest: A Journey Through Time’, chapter by Rodney Holland (2017) and ‘Fatally Confused: Telling the Time in the Midst of Ecological Crises’, by Michelle Bastian (2012)
ACCESS:
This week’s excerpt is available as a high resolution digital scan (or as a large-print photocopy in the gallery). You can zoom in for legibility, however it is not text-to-voice accessible.
*Auslan interpretation can be organised on request, drop us a line at: makeorbreakart@gmail.com.
If you would like to join reading group in the gallery please contact Claudie Frock:
E: claudie.frock@lismore.nsw.gov.au
T: 02 6627 4600
* Gallery spaces are limited & COVID safe precautions will be in place.
Accessibility Info:
* Please let us know if you require an Auslan Interpreter to access this program.
* Where possible, large print and text to voice versions of texts will be made available for readers.
*Lismore Regional Gallery is a wheelchair accessible venue.
.png)
smnall_web.jpg)
_web_small_2.png)
