LECTURE
Irresistible Revolutions: Systems Change and Art at the Edge of the Future
Thursday, September 19, 2024
5 PM CDT
Elvehjem L140
Click here to join through Zoom
WORKSHOP*
Creating Change: Practicing the Future Together
Friday, September 20, 2024
12 PM CDT
6321 Humanities
*Please contact cvc@mailplus.wisc.edu for required readings and reading notes.
Lecture Abstract:
We are living in a speculative moment. 2024 is the year articulated by several authors as being the year that everything changed- from Octavis Butler (2023) to Star Trek Deep Space Nine (2022). Indeed, 2024 has been predicted by several speculative artists to be a time of upheaval and change. This talk will explore systems change and abolition as a futurity process and will consider what speculative fiction can help us to worldbuild in the now. Rooted in Toni Cade Bambara’s suggestion that it was the role of artists to make the revolution irresistible and exploring speculative fiction projects Ancestors, Do You Read Us: Dispatches From The Future and MBL Freedom/Antarctica, this talk will highlight the work of Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware and others using art to inspire hope and change.
References
Alexander, Lisa Doris. “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” In The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek, pp. 37-45. Routledge, 2022.
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Grand Central Publishing, 2023.
Workshop Abstract:
Join us for an interactive workshop using movement, textiles and creative methods to explore our ideal and just futures. Drawing on Adrienne Maree Brown’s suggestion that speculative practice allowed us the opportunity to “practice the future” (2022), we will get to play with the idea of time travel and with creative materials to develop new imaginings for our future freer world.
References
Donnelly, Gabrielle. “Creating Compelling Futures with Autumn Brown and Adrienne Maree Brown.” In Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures, pp. 301-306. Routledge, 2022.
Biography:
Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier Scholar, visual artist, activist, curator, and educator. Syrus is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Arts, McMaster University. Using drawing, installation, and performance, Syrus works with and explores social justice frameworks and Black activist culture. His work has been shown widely, including solo shows at Tangled Art + Disability in 2022 (Random Access Memory), Grunt Gallery in 2018 (2068:Touch Change) and Wil Aballe Art Projects in 2021 (Irresistible Revolutions). His work has been featured as part of the inaugural Toronto Biennial of Art in both 2019 and 2022 in conjunction with the Ryerson Image Centre (Antarctica and Ancestors, Do You Read Us? (Dispatches from the Future and MBL:Freedom)), as well as for the Bentway’s Safety in Public Spaces Initiative in 2020 (Radical Love).
He is part of the PDA (Performance Disability Art) Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus‘ recent curatorial projects include That’s So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019), Re:Purpose (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2014) and The Church Street Mural Project (Church-Wellesley Village, 2013). Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre.
Syrus is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter- Canada and the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism. Syrus is a past co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama and the Wildseed Black Arts Fellowship. Syrus has won several awards, including the TD Diversity Award in 2017. Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine (2005) and was awarded the Steinert and Ferreiro Award (2012). Syrus holds a doctorate from York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. He is the co-editor of the best-selling Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (URP, 2020), and Marvellous Grounds: Queen of Colour Formations (BTL, 2018) and Queering Urban Justice (UTP, 2018).