The Old Is Dying, The New Cannot Yet Be Born
Lucky Pierre Free University
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." — Antonio Gramsci, The Prison Notebooks (1929 - 1935)
(2017, LPFU, group learning, exhibition) Central to Lucky Pierre’s project at Roman Susan is a participatory timeline capturing the first 100 days of the first Trump administration. This living graph collectively charts the social, economic, and cultural forces currently at play. Typically, a timeline is a tool created from a historical and emotional distance used to make connections between the past and the present. At this time of profound conjuncture, can we collectively interpret history as it is happening? This impulse to decode current events can serve as a catalyst for conversation, an opportunity for co-learning, a counter-moment of hope – and perhaps an antidote.
Programming
Opening Attendees collectively add entries to the evolving timeline installed at Roman Susan. There will be art supplies available for protest sign making and CEW (Creatively Empowered Women) Design Studio will also be on site with a Pop-Up Store. CEW Design Studio is a local project that serves Bosnian and South Asian immigrant women, through art therapy and social enterprise.
The Reading Project with Judith Brotman Judith Brotman and six invited guests who will read aloud from literature, nonfiction, poetry, and criticism. Readers will choose a personally meaningful text responding to our current historical moment. The selected texts will be revealed as read by each guest, creating impromptu juxtapositions, and textual interconnections. Each guest will read for 10 minutes. Conversation and cake will follow.
Closing Event Brian Holmes (cultural critic and artist/cartographer) and Hoda Katebi (Muslim-Iranian writer, photographer, and activist) lead a discussion addressing the question, “What does the moment in between the old dying off and the new creating itself have to offer?” Music and cookout will follow the heady discussion.
