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Writing and speaking in public entail constant editing, revision, redaction, and correction. Oftentimes these are dictated by style guides, genre conventions, or shifting cultural and political discourse—what some might call “political correctness”—but more often than not, by the writer’s or speaker’s practice of pushing the boundaries of language and craft and propriety and legitimacy.

Strike That brings together visual artists, writers, and poets who critically reflect on changing language in the broader cultural and political landscape and their own work. How are vocabulary, grammar, and syntax negotiated, updated, or rejected to reflect the fissures between inner lives and political realities? How do we do so in real time and respond to crises while attending to the repair or recuperation of linguistic histories and legacies from violence and dispossession? What of translation, legibility, and opacity? When do lexicons fail us, and when are they a tool for empowerment and resistance? From neologisms to reclaiming outdated terminology, the speakers discuss the poetic and political stakes in word choice as speech and speech acts are censored, criminalized, and the speaker silenced.

Update: Video recording of event on Vimeo

Participants
Those registered and
Demian DinéYazhi’, Native American artist, poet, and activist.
Fargo Nissim Tbakhi, Palestinian-American performance artist and writer.
SA Smythe, transmedia storyteller, multi-instrumentalist, critical theorist, and educator, Assistant Professor of Black Studies and the Archive at the University of Toronto.

The last in the Vera List Center for Art and Politics’ two year Correction* Seminar Series, this program is co-presented with the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University, Ontario. It is organized and moderated by Nasrin Himada, Associate Curator, Academic Outreach and Community Engagement, Queen’s University, and Eriola Pira, VLC Curator and Director of Programs.

The twelve-part Correction* Seminar Series is structured as an open curriculum and presented from September 2022 through May 2024. Led by Vera List Center faculty and staff, each monthly seminar in this two-year series explores the perils and potentials of the political, social, and metaphorical implications of “correction.” Bridging theory and practice, Correction* unfolds through three distinct research clusters every semester set to guide our joint investigation into Restitution, the Body, and Carcerality. It is presented as part of the Barbara Jordan Lectures: The State of Democracy series and supported by the Helen Shapiro Lectureship fund.

The Vera List Center is committed to ensuring that our programs are accessible to and inclusive of all. Please let us know when registering if you need any accommodations.

The Spring 2024 programs of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics are generously supported by members of the Vera List Center Board, other individual donors, and the following institutional donors:

The Boris Lurie Art Foundation and the Schaina and Josephina Lurje Memorial Foundation
The Dayton Foundation
Mellon Foundation
Native Arts and Cultures Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
New York State Council on the Arts
Terra Foundation for American Art