Accessibility
Please read the access information of the space on our website at this link.
We will have a designated person on-site to respond to access needs.
We will project live transcriptions of the conversation using the algorithmic program otter.ai.
We will offer a limited number of bluetooth headphones directly connected to the audio mixer. Participants will use microphones for amplification.
We will offer live transmission through a static phone camera and audio from the mixer, as well as live transcriptions.
Questions may be posed to participants during the Q&A in this anonymous pad.
Follow this link for the live transmission.
The event will be recorded as an audio file and in photos. It will be accessible on soundcloud and eventually (later in 2022 on the publishing practices website (www.publishingpractices.org).
Please note that photographs will be taken throughout the gathering. These may be used on our website, social media platforms, or publications related to Archive. Please contact us if you have any concerns or wish to be exempted from this activity.
We would like to offer someone on-site to take care of people aged 2-14. Depending on availability, this will either be an experienced or professional person. Please inquire with us up till two days before the event.
If you need additional support to attend the event live, please inquire with us for funding for assistants, transportation, or for care at home for household members.
Email us here: info@archivesites.org
This event is 2G + Test.
We will ask guests to show negative test results before entering the venue. A test can be made available on-site in case of difficulty due to mobility issues.
Publishing Practices
Gathering Collectives #1:
Casa Kuà and Sickness Affinity Group
The practices of Casa Kuà and Sickness Affinity Group (SAG) intersect in the interest of understanding health/sickness/ability as a collective and holistic endeavor. They object to the individualist, ableist, eurocentric, cis-male-centred healthcare prevalent in Germany. Addressing the interconnectedness of body, gender and desire, class, ability and race, both initiatives refer to complex addressees—informed by multiple trauma, the complexity of belonging and intersecting marginalizations. The desire to bring together a community that engages with this multitude of differences marks the common denominator in this struggle. The groups’ attempts to contribute to this process are mediated through practices of space making, collectivity and publishing. In this gathering, we will focus on Casa Kuà’s Lohana Berkins library and the publishing practices of Sickness Affinity Group.
Central to this conversation will be the strategies of creating accessible spaces and practices with limited resources: for instance, the sharing of economic means, time and materials, especially with self-publishing, reading groups, informal digital publishing, and community libraries. Currently, Sickness Affinity Group publishes their third booklet, The Tender, yet Furious Oracle, compiled from online resources; and an offline zine library centered on access and disability. Casa Kuà is building the Lohana Berkins Library, which will collect publications mainly by BIPoC authors and aims to be an additional resource for knowledge circulation and community building within Casa Kuà.
Zoya (he/they) from Casa Kuà and Frances Breden (she) from Sickness Affinity Group will be on stage, joined by Yaniya Lee (she) and Amelie Jakubek (she) from Archive Books.
Program
Join our internal preparation from 7 – 7.30 pm. Participate in the process and informal conversations with Archive members and guests. This is open to interested audiences by registration to this email: amelie@archivebooks.org
The public session is from 8.15 pm to approximately 9.15 pm. No registration is needed.
Casa Kuà is organized by trans* and nonbinary BIPoCs to make health more accessible to trans, inter, nonbinary and queer people, especially those affected by racism.
The aim of the center is to assemble alternative, traditional, and conventional medical treatments. Casa Kuà wants to bring communities together, centring the needs and wishes of BIPoC (Black, Indigenous & People of Colour) trans* people, because for Casa Kuà, communities and health are inseparable.
The Lohana Berkins library is the library in the making of Casa Kuà. It is currently collecting works by BIPoC authors on topics including health, pleasure, resistance, decolonialism, empowerment, and publications related to feminist/queer, trans* & inter* topics. The library is named in honor of the legacy and in memory of their dear friend Lohana Berkins, a travesti activist who represented her community in all aspects. Born in Salta, Argentina, on June 14, 1955, she lived 50 years until February 5, 2016. She made her way alone from age 13 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, pushing for a better life for her community. She fought for law No. 3062, securing respect for the identity of travesti and transgender people, which was approved by the Buenos Aires Legislature in 2009 and led to the creation of the Nadia Echazú Textile Cooperative in 2008, the first Cooperative School for travesti and transgender people.
Sickness Affinity Group (SAG) is a group of art workers and activists who work on sickness/disability and/or are affected by sickness/disability. Sickness Affinity Group functions as a support group that challenges the competitive and ableist mode of working in the arts by sharing experiences and information and prioritising its group members’ wellbeing and access needs. Sickness Affinity Group investigates accessibility as both a topic and curatorial method. They aim to celebrate and create room for non-normative bodies, politics, and desires and offer a supportive environment for fragility and wellbeing.
Sickness Affinity Group holds bi-monthly meetings in Berlin and maintains an email list. Sickness Affinity Group members collaborate on projects in small working groups and report from their process in the bi-monthly meetings. In their workshop series Sick Time Press, the collective investigated how zines can be circulated as an accessible means of conversation within a crip community. As part of this series, a small zine library emerged, a part of which will be on display for the event.
www.sicktimepress.sicknessaffinity.org, www.sicknessaffinity.org
On the Framework
Gathering Collectives seeks to initiate and support de-accelerated conversations between entities of more than one body. To come together in community, build authentic relationships, and see what emerges from the conversations, connections, visions and needs, are the terms in which adrienne marree brown defines emergent strategy, a strategy that moves at the speed of trust. This inquiry does not confine itself to one format. Gathering Collectives in itself is rather a strategy than a program that fosters relationship building over project results and occasionally offers moments for sharing experiences with a wider public.
Gathering Collectives is a strain of Publishing Practices, a yearly program committed to an expanded idea of publishing, which intends to open a collective publishing space for action, reflection, study, intervention and multisensorial encounter. Publishing Practices #1 – This Bridge Can Get Us There (2021-2022) is curated by Chiara Figone, Paz Guevara and Beya Othmani. This present gathering is conceived by Amelie Jakubek.
Publishing Practices is funded by the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF).