January, New Beginnings

A new newsletter by Prem Krishnamurthy with upcoming events, publications, recommendations, and readings

Dear dear friends,

A month into the New Year: hopefully we are finally making some of the transitions (political, personal, and otherwise) that have been promised. As you may have noticed, I’ve also switched to a new platform—I’d love to hear what you think of it.

As I reflect on the difficult year behind us, I’ve come to think about 2020 as a kind of practice: a call for us to work on tools for organizing, making, and living together that can be applied to the challenges ahead.

In this spirit, next Sunday, 7 February 2021, from 17:00–19:00 Berlin time (11:00–13:00 EST) we’ll host a special episode of Present!, organized with artist Kalaija Mallery. Called “A Gathering of Gatherings”, it’s a workshop and conversation around new formats for online convening. We’ll talk about sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s concept of a “third place” (the space between home and work) and its applicability in our current virtual context. You can join via Zoom (ID: 814 1642 8164, PW: 826055)—make sure to bring your discussion hats, dancing shoes, plus a refreshing beverage or two!

The event builds on the 12 episodes of Present! from 2020. The documentation of these events and the show notes to each are all now online. Thanks to all of the artists, designers, curators, writers, musicians, healers, and folks who have joined us so far!

Last November, I prepared a new talk for a conference: an in-progress set of field notes on designing online gatherings, culled from my experiences participating in different kinds of online groups since March 2020. I’ve now edited this slightly into an open-access slideshow, “Karaoke and Communing: Field Notes on Emergent Collective Spaces in the Early Zoomocene.” Below are some of the key takeaways, an incomplete list of suggestions for organizing communities online:

If you’re curious to learn more, follow the link to the Google Slides document and open up the speaker notes (or check out the accompanying Google Doc talk script).

Since we probably can’t do live karaoke anytime soon, I’ve turned to other kinds of generative gatherings. Whereas last year I focused on larger scales of assembly, I’m currently finding myself gravitating towards smaller groups, inspired by my transformative experience with The Hum’s online courses. These groups include a virtual book club out of Finland that I initially joined for a critical reading of Sasha Costanza-Chock’s Design Justice (up next: Arturo Escobar’s Designs for the Pluriverse). Then, together with a handful of new and old friends in the US, Spain, and Australia, I’ve also begun to work through the MIT u.lab MOOC. Next, I might organize a small group of artists in Berlin for monthly meet-ups. Personally, I find the intimacy of a weekly or biweekly gathering with a smaller set of folks a sustaining practice amidst the ongoing lockdown. 

One of my biggest concerns since the early days of the pandemic has been how it limits opportunities for weak ties—the everyday connections we create with people whom we don’t know well and who are different from us. This contrasts with the greater sense of connection to my family and closest friends during the past year. So, I’m starting to experiment with small correctives. Since last summer, I’ve been using Calendly to easily schedule everything from studio visits, project meetings, social dates, as well as pro-bono consulting for Black-led orgs and businesses. Now, I’m setting aside an hour or two a week for “random meetings”—half hour conversations with folks whom I don’t regularly talk to. If you’re reading this and are interested in a quick chat, just click on my digital calendar and choose from the available times. Or, email me and we can look for another chance to connect.

Full lockdown in Germany has offered me an opportunity for other kinds of new encounters—well, mostly indulging in my bookaholic tendencies! I have a good alibi: as artistic director of FRONT International 2022, the Cleveland triennial of contemporary art, I’ve been reading and listening to voices that connect with the show’s curatorial themes. These include art’s relationship to healing, dance, labor, ecology, community, and more. Here’s a snapshot of what my studio desk and reading stacks currently look like:

You can find all of these titles on FRONT 2022’s new bookshop.org page, which allows US / UK folks to buy books and support independent booksellers. And, if you do pick up any of these books, please also consider participating in projects such as artist and professor Sonya Clark’s #SolidarityReading project, which raises money for Black and Indigenous causes when you read aloud short passages relating to solidarity.

I’ll leave you with three books I’ve read since the holidays that have stayed with me: 

— N.K. Jemison’s The Fifth Season
I’d been hearing about this for several years, but I have to admit that the cover design and page count put me off a bit at first. Don’t let them. This is progressive fantasy at its most engaging, a tale of earth and environment and loss and racism and oppression and resistance filtered through the stories of a seismically-challenged future. Plus, it features a clever narrative structure that pulled me in from the start. I can’t wait to read the other two books in the trilogy next.

— Tommy Orange’s There There
Also one that I’ve been hearing about a lot—I picked in up a couple of weeks ago and finished it in just a handful of days. There There circles around everyday and historical traumas amongst a cast of Native characters in the Bay Area. Its polyphonic structure inhabits the perspective of several intersecting figures thoroughly and with a palpable sense of care. The book’s approach unmasks the lie that a singular, authoritative narrative was ever even possible.

— Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery
I read Robert Pirsig’s Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was a sulking, existential teenager, but it never clicked that the book was riffing on this 1948 classic. Turns out that it makes a good holiday gift in 2020 (thank you, Emily!). It concisely outlines an ongoing process of artistic creation and coming to peace with the world. It’s also encouraged me to resume the discipline of a daily meditation practice. I wish I had received this book 15 years ago, although I suspect it would have been harder for me to grasp back then—perhaps you have to be further along the path to recognize it.

I wish you all a good close to the month, a time for reflecting on last year and planning for the future. Let’s stay connected.

With love,
Prem