Moderated by Jay Tan
Rietveld/Sandberg Library, 5:00-7:00 PM

The new assisted dying bill just passed in the UK. Questions such as: “What is a life worth living?” and “How much pain is too much?” were raised. Coercion, burden, and notions of dignity were debated.

Activists and professionals in the medical and disability justice field raised concerns that poor, racialised patients and other marginalised people with disabilities who don’t have access to good quality palliative care could feel pressured to end their lives. Member of Parliament Florence Eshalomi ended her speech to the house by asking:

“How can we be possibly satisfied that this bill would deliver equality and freedom in death when we do not yet have this in life.”(1)

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23XO0nZP9Pg&abchannel=PoliticsJOE

In a 2009 workshop, Angela Melitopoulos asked us what was more important health or art. What happens once “everyone” is supposedly “healthy”? What then?

Constantina Zavitsanos ends the introduction to their recent exhibition fwiw:

“For what it’s worth, here’s my two cents: I am still alive.”

Join for a reading group that moves through the poetics that arise, and are necessary, when we share and live dependent lives of varied needs and experiences. For details on the different sessions see below.

Jay Tan is an artist and educator who grew up watching a lot of TV in South London. They completed their MFA at the Piet Zwart Institute in 2010 and were a 2014/15 resident at the Rijksakademie. Based in Rotterdam, they make decorative sculptural and video installations heavy in domestic mechanics. This might mean dressing up model racing cars or bejewelling cavities. They teach in the Rietveld Academie Fine Arts Dept and the Masters of Artistic Research at KABK. They have shown work at the CACC Paris, Ujazdowski Castle, Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Ellen de Bruijne projects and Gallerie van Gelder, Amsterdam, Futura, Prague, Kunstverein, Amsterdam, Vleeshal, Middleburg, the CAC, Vilnius, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Hollybush Gardens London, Tent and Kunstinstituut Melly (Formerly Witte de With), Rotterdam and RongWrong, Amsterdam.

Session 1+2: Donald Rodney

Donald Rodney - Autoicon

Richard Birkett

Donald Rodney “Visceral Canker” Spike Island

Frank Wasser

Donald Rodney “Crisis” Exhibition text

Amanda Sebestyen

9 Night in Eldorado (https://slgarchive.org/index.php/donald-rodney-9-night-in-eldorado)

Donald Rodney

Altered Access: Park McArthur Keynote Address

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi9Smlvyaqg&abchannel=MITListVisualArtsCenter)

Session 3: cold, sick, and fabulous

After after

Pinka PopsicKle

Medusa’s Mirror – An Exercise in Self-Reflection

Priyanka D’Souza

Session 4: beyond the rubrics of access and inclusion

Crip Negativity

J. Logan Smilges

Session 5: fight for those who fight for you

I’ll Dial Your Number

Jane Shi

Critical Disability Studies and The Question of Palestine: Towards Decolonizing

Disability

Jasbir K. Puar

Buried Voices

Leroy F. Moore

Session 6: For What It’s Worth

Ms. Pac-Man

Constantina Zavitsanos

https://artistsspace.org/exhibitions/fwiw

https://www.artforum.com/events/constantina-zavitsanos-critics-pick-560885/

Echolalia

Noa Micaela Fields

The Librarian in the Trees

By DJ Savarese

Untitled Visual Poem

Tea Gerbeza