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Community Day: Capitalism’s Effect on the Artist’s Body

A4A Community Day: Capitalism’s Effect on The Artist’s Body

January 28th, 2023

Location: Manhattan (in person, TBD)

Schedule:

12:00pm - 1:00pm: Meeting + Socializing
1:00pm - 4:00pm: Guided Somatics Workshop
4:00 - 5:00pm: Dinner Break (food not provided)
5pm - 8pm: Screening of Dope is Death (2020), discussion to follow

Details:

How do our bodies figure into our labor as artists? How does capitalism’s repression of the body function as a tool of alienation and disempowerment? How do we honor our bodies learning and organizing together? How can we relate to ourselves when embodiment does not feel possible? Through a combination of somatic practices, embodied dialogue, and creative exercises, we move from theory towards praxis by engaging both text and body as archives and technologies of liberation. 

This day-long event for the A4A community will begin with dedicated time for socializing followed by a workshop on revolutionary somatic practices. We will close the day with a screening and discussion of Mia Donovan’s Dope is Death (2020). Participants are welcome to drop in for all or part of the day’s events. This event is offered exclusively to A4a alumni and is FREE with RSVP. Space is limited for this intimate event.

Programming for this event will be accompanied by a printed publication of A4A’s inaugural zine. A digital version will be available for those unable to attend in person. 

Covid Safety:

This event is in-person and indoors; masks will be required, and we request that participants rapid test before attending. At-home tests can be acquired for free at most local libraries (click here for a list of pickup sites); we will have extras available on site. 

Optional Study Material: 

During the somatics workshop, we will do the majority of our studying together in person. We offer this essay in advance as an additional, optional material that may help contextualize the focus of this offering. 

Alta Starr, “Cultivating the Self: Embodied Transformation for Artists,” in Making and Being by Susan Jahoda and Caroline Woolard (New York: Pioneer Works Press, 2020)

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A4A Art Show

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July 8

A4A at Printed Matter East Village Zine Fair