AGAINST FEMINIST FORGETTING
2022

“Against feminist forgetting: strategies for intergenerational collaboration in the arts” is a one-year program of mini residencies, out-loud reading groups, and the building of a mobile library that will research strategies to intervene in feminist forgetting: the tendency for intergenerational knowledge to fail to make the “jump” across communities of feminist practitioners.

In 2022, EMILIA-AMALIA invited six curators, writers and cultural workers to undertake mini residencies, working for the first time in our own bricks and mortar space, a studio in downtown Toronto.

These guest residencies provided space for the residents to pursue their research, while also contributing to the group’s ongoing practice investigating tools for intergenerational knowledge transmission. Each resident will research tactics for collaboration used by feminist practitioners in the past, share their in-progress research and generate a list of books to contribute to E-A’s mobile library. Some may host public, out-loud reading groups during their tenure at the E-A residency.

Virtual Reading Group | Andrea Long Chu’s Females​
Part I | Thursday, 28 October 2021, 6–7;30 PM | RSVP
Part II | Thursday, 25 November 2021, 6–8 PM | RSVP

Andrea Long Chu admits a preference for indefensible claims, and an attraction to the polarizing figure of Valerie Solanas for her brazen indefensibility, while offering kernels of something that feels like truth. In Females, Chu proposes that the way being female and the feminine has been coded is always something to “get away” from, even in various feminist causes. If the female is marked by giving up one’s desire for the sake of another, and the fear of losing agency and control, it is inside everyone, after all—“everyone is female and everyone hates it.”

By linking Solanas’s writing from the 1960s to her experiences of trans femininity in the 21st century, Chu puts queer feminist anger from the past in dialogue with the transformative work being done by trans women to refigure how we understand an embodied feminist politics.

The Witch Institute | The Names Have Changed, Including My Own and Truths Have Been Altered
Friday, 20 August 2021, 9:30–11 AM

Onyeka Igwe’s recent film “the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered” (2019) explores the legacy of the artist’s grandfather, who is depicted, in an famous Igbo novel, performing a ritual to atone for his employer’s discretion of the land. This figure is fragmented both in history and in memory, and Igwe pieces together her own understanding of this story by exploring the sum of its parts. She examines archival images, personal recount, interviews with family members, exploration in moving image archives, representations in Nollywood dramas and embodiment through movement to unpack the many representations of this figure.

A discussion following the film was moderated by members of EMILIA-AMALIA. The post-film discussion explored how legend is passed on through various forms of intergenerational knowledge transfer, such as oral history and images, and adaptations into popular culture and media. The discussion also focused on how techniques of movement, embodiment and the sensorial can be used to unearth and revisit past states of being, as well healing memories of trauma.

Artist File Fair No. 3
Saturday, 30 January 2021, 1–3 PM
E.P. Taylor Library, Art Gallery of Ontario

This 3rd edition of the File Fair will feature Artist Erika DeFreitas and Curator Lillian O’Brien Davis in conversation about the work of attempting to share space, unearth and pay their respects to Black women whose presence has been erased through the narrativization of euro-centric art history. Traces of the existence of Other lives are not deemed important enough to be included in the canon of Western art history and archaeology. Therefore, seeking evidence of these traces—of typically non-white histories—consists of looking for the smallest clues, unearthing the forgotten fragments preserved by sheer luck or chance from aging empires. Event details.

In addition to the conversation, the library invites emerging and established artists alike to start an artist file or contribute materials to their existing file. Participants can build a file by completing an online questionnaire about their work and submitting copies of exhibition invitations, pamphlets, press releases, and any other ephemera related to their practice or exhibition history. Visit the Artist File webpage for more information on the collection and how to contribute.

Speakers:
Erika DeFreitas
Lillian O’Brian Davis

HOW TO BUILD A RUIN: HAZEL MEYER AND CAIT MCKINNEY
Wednesday, 2 December 2020, 7-8 PM
A performance lecture on Zoom, followed by a Q&A

This performance takes up thinking and feeling about ruins in relation to sexuality. When is a ruin ruined and for whom? How can we think about ruins alongside other erotic modalities, like “to be ruined.” 

REFLECTIONS OF A REAL-LIFE FEMINIST KILLJOY: A SCREENING AND READING GROUP
Tuesday, 4 February 2020, 7-9 PM
In partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Hosted by the Toronto Media Arts Centre

Join EMILIA-AMALIA for a second look at the second wave with a screening of “Jill Johnston: October 1975” (1977) and an out-loud reading group that discusses Kyla Wazana Tompkins’s essay, “Reflections of a Real-Life Feminist Killjoy: Ball-Busters and the Recurring Trauma of Intergenerational Queer-Feminist Life” 

Artist File Fair No. 2
Saturday, 30 November 2019, 1–3 PM
E.P. Taylor Library, Art Gallery of Ontario

This year, EMILIA-AMALIA is working within the framework of HOLES AND HOW TO FILL THEM as an organizing principle and guiding metaphor. Designed as a test-site for feminist research, commissioning, writing and exhibition-making, this programming arc takes up E-A’s ongoing interest in practices of failure, refusal, withdrawal, deliberate omission, and generative stoppages as sites for feminist organizing and conduits for lost intergenerational knowledge.

In keeping with E-A’s year-long inquiry, this File Fair event is centred on inviting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour), women and trans artists to start a file at the library, archive their contributions within Canadian art history and contribute to institutional memory. Event details.

Speaker Schedule:
Genevieve Flavelle
Courtnay McFarlane

INVOLUTION
A film screening curated by Claire Greenshaw, Annie MacDonell, Gabrielle Moser and Erica Stocking
Wednesday, 30 October 2019, 7 PM
In partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Hosted by the Toronto Media Arts Centre

At the time of year when the veil between the living and dead is the thinnest, this program presents an experience of motherhood as a shifting of boundaries between the Self and an Other. Part of EMILIA-AMALIA’s year-long collaboration with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC), titled HOLES AND HOW TO FILL THEM, in which artists and curators are invited to respond to E-A’s programming and to the CFMDC film collection.

WALK A MILE IN MY MOCCASINS
(THEN SLIDE THEM OFF AND COME LAY WITH ME)
A film screening curated by Adrienne Huard
Saturday, 7 September 2019, 1 PM
In partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Hosted by the Toronto Media Arts Centre

A screening that engages the intersections of Two-Spirit identity, queerness, Indigenous feminism, gender expression and sexual autonomy. Part of EMILIA-AMALIA’s year-long collaboration with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC), titled HOLES AND HOW TO FILL THEM, in which artists and curators are invited to respond to E-A’s programming and to the CFMDC film collection.

AFFIDAMENTO/ENTRUSTMENT WRITING SESSION
Tuesday, 16 July 2019, 6 PM
Dufferin Grove Park
875 Dufferin Park Ave, Toronto, ON M6H 4B2

Returning to one of our earliest sessions on storytelling and writing, EMILIA-AMALIA invites participants to join us for a writing-focused session on disparity, difference and the practice of entrustment. Writing generated by this session will be collected for publication in our final chapbook, due out this fall.

ARMCHAIR POLITICS 
A film screening curated by Vince Rozario and Sanjit Dhillon
Thursday, 4 July 2019, 7 PM
In partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Hosted by the Toronto Media Arts Centre

This program imagines an affective viewing space where socially encoded scripts of identity, as mediated by the screen, are challenged, negotiated and transformed. Through omissions, appropriations and recontextualizations, these films engender the potential to activate and envision new social relations. This screening is part of EMILIA-AMALIA’s year-long collaboration with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC), titled HOLES AND HOW TO FILL THEM, in which artists and curators are invited to respond to E-A’s programming and to the CFMDC film collection.

SIMULTANEITIES IN REFLEXIVITIES:
ABSENCE/PRESENCE ⋆ SEER/SEEN
A film screening curated by Calla Durose-Moya
Thursday, 13 June 2019, 7 PM
In partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Hosted by the Toronto Media Arts Centre

This program engages with and revisits performance-for-camera work made by women and non-binary media artists in Canada. Through a variety of methods and materials, these artists’ works demonstrate that vulnerability is not only an affective modality, but also a political statement. This screening is part of EMILIA-AMALIA’s year-long collaboration with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC), titled HOLES AND HOW TO FILL THEM, in which artists and curators are invited to respond to E-A’s programming and to the CFMDC film collection.

EMILIA-AMALIA AT MERCER UNION
SESSION: AMY WONG
Thursday, 23 May 2019, 7 PM
Mercer Union, 1286 Bloor St West, Toronto, ON  M6H 1N9

Artist Amy Wong hosts a performative lecture focusing on mother-work as interwoven with social, communal and activist work. Wong explores a range of inspirations and traditions: the popularity of mid-19th–century quilting bees, Cantonese traditions of postpartum nourishment and healing, and the artist’s own use of and thinking around breastmilk production as linked to cultural production. This event is part of EMILIA-AMALIA’s partnership with Mercer Union, in which the group responds to the exhibition Beatrice Gibson: Plural Dreams of Social Life through four public programs in the ongoing series SESSION.

EMILIA-AMALIA AT MERCER UNION
SESSION: ERICA STOCKING
Sunday, 5 May 2019, 12–3 PM
Mercer Union, 1286 Bloor St West, Toronto, ON  M6H 1N9

Artist Erica Stocking hosts a participatory reading of her play, The Artist’s Studio is Her Bedroom—a choreographed statement on autobiographical art making towards a new grammar for living, working and being in the world—influenced by the methodology and writings of Gertrude Stein. This event is part of EMILIA-AMALIA’s partnership with Mercer Union, in which the group responds to the exhibition Beatrice Gibson: Plural Dreams of Social Life through four public programs in the ongoing series SESSION.

EMILIA-AMALIA AT MERCER UNION
SESSION: SAMARA LIVINGCHIMES
Sunday, 28 April 2019, 12–3 PM
Mercer Union 1286 Bloor St West, Toronto, ON  M6H 1N9

Therapeutic Sound Practitioner Samara Livingchimes will lead a meditative sound bath for a small group of participants in the spirit of Pauline Oliveros’s principle of deep listening. This event is part of EMILIA-AMALIA’s partnership with Mercer Union, in which the group responds to the exhibition Beatrice Gibson: Plural Dreams of Social Life through four public programs in the ongoing series SESSION.

EMILIA-AMALIA AT MERCER UNION
SESSION: MOYRA DAVEY
Thursday, 25 April 2019, 7 PM
Mercer Union, 1286 Bloor St West, Toronto, ON  M6H 1N9

Artist and writer Moyra Davey offers a reading from her new monograph accompanied by a screening of notable excerpts from her film work. This event is part of EMILIA-AMALIA’s partnership with Mercer Union, in which the group responds to the exhibition Beatrice Gibson: Plural Dreams of Social Life through four public programs in the ongoing series SESSION. 

ABOLITIONIST DREAMS
Jackie Wang in conversation with Nasrin Himada
Tuesday, 2 April 2019, 7:30–9:30 PM
In partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Hosted by the Toronto Media Arts Centre

This conversation draws on Jackie Wang’s various works that inspire abolitionist dreams. “The profession of the poet is dreaming. The profession of the jailer is to contain. The poet is the one who makes the light. The guard is the one who takes it.” From her recent book, Carceral Capitalism, Wang references the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, as she reflects on the profession of dreaming, and the freedom felt through the dreamwork of abolition. Together, let’s imagine a world that does not yet exist.

EMILIA-AMALIA SESSION XIII:
ABOLITIONIST POETICS AND THE PRACTICE OF DREAMING
A writing workshop with Jackie Wang
Saturday, 30 March 2019, 1–3 PM
In partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Hosted by Dames Making Games and the Toronto Media Arts Centre

In this workshop, participants will explore the relationship between poetry and social imagination. Using dreams to access a mode of thinking that does not concede to the realism of the present, the session seeks to shatter the captivity of bodies and imaginations through writing exercises (feel free to bring your dreams!) and discussions responding to textual and filmic clips.