Perception is about how we touch and are touched
— Sara Ahmed

In the Plenum
existence becomes a rendering of possibilities
exposed to the horizon of becoming
— Denise Ferreira da Silva

We are grappling with separations both physical and structural. We are feeling around for ways of knowing without Thought, time, or space. This Disassemblies is a collective writing and reading of visitor guides and theory refracted into poetry and gesture: to be performed with guests near and remote.

The point of departure is the exhition “Dependencies,” at WIELS for which artist Hana Miletić worked with three groups: a group of women from Globe Aroma who made felt and wrote poetry together, a local weaving studio (Academy of Visual Arts Anderlecht), and the reading/writing group Knowledge Is A Does (KIAD). This particular event departs from the reading of two essays: Denise Denise Ferreira da Silva's “Toward a Black Feminist Poethics” and Sara Ahmed's “Collective Feelings. Or, The Impressions Left by Others.”
For Disassemblies 07 members from KIAD developed a program with confidantes and conspirators some of whom have asked to remain anonymous in solidarity with those illegalized and racialized within colonial institutions. Contributors include Amal Alhaag and Maria Guggenbichler, Heleen Debeuckelaere, E. C. Feiss, Johanna Hedva, Ibrahim Khayar, Bouchra Lamsyeh and Globe Aroma, Hana Miletić, Shilemeza Prins and Globe Aroma, Karisa Senavitis, Kym Ward, Constantina Zavitsanos, amongst others.

Access Info: Standing room with folding chairs. Printed readers available to all guests (with additional biographical information). The space is wheelchair accessible and there is a non gendered bathroom with wheelchair access. Transcript of talk available after by request. Fragrance free encouraged. Free/no cost.

About “Knowledge is a Does”

“Knowledge is a Does” (KIAD) started as a socially concerned reading group at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Spring 2014. The original members are Alexis Blake, E.C. Feiss, Toon Fibbe, Ilke Gers, Conny Karlsson Lundgren, Hana Miletić, Karisa Senavitis, Kym Ward, and Katharina Zimmerhackl. The group draws its name from an essay of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick[1], the American literary critic and scholar, most well known for her work in forming the discipline of queer theory. Kosofsky Sedgwick’s articulation of the concept of “reparative reading” came to structure what and how KIAD reads. Without naming their practice as such, KIAD undertakes various kinds of “reparative reading” together, and tries to develop a form of study – of what they read, of the institutional politics around them, and of themselves, that goes beyond a critical deconstruction/paranoid reading. KIAD continues, in new and distant constellations, to come together to make sense of what unfolds today: the ascendency of the far right in America and Europe, the two continents where they live.

“Disassemblies” are a series of disparate events programmed by KIAD developed to explore the questions generated from KIAD’s readings within new settings. Former events include film screenings, poetry readings, a lecture/tarot reading, a “Hate Party”, a publication/symposium, and performances. Happenings took place in artist-run spaces, a private living room, a LGBTIQ bar, a thrift shop, and a gymnasium. Past guests/contributors include Hannah Black, Valentina Desideri, DJ NOGOOD/SUPER, Egbert Alejandro Martina, Lisa Robertson, Denise Ferreria da Silva, Stikstof, Marina Vishmidt, YOUTUBE LADS, and Simone Zeefuik, amongst others.