Public (Re) Assembly

A lecture by Shannon Jackson

Thursday, November 9 at 7PM
E.I.K., 32 Edgewood Avenue, New Haven

What does it mean to assemble in public in our present moment? And what does it mean to assemble public sector systems? Is there a relation between the public appearance of the former and the systematic operations of the latter? The concept of assembly is resonant, multivalent, and fraught in our current moment. Assembly recalls theories of democracy and freedom as well as modern and contemporary art movements of assemblage. It also invokes industrial (and post-industrial) processes of production, arrangement, service, and labor. Can the re-imagining of Public Re-Assembly help us to re-imagine how social practice is performed?

About Shannon Jackson

Shannon Jackson is a teacher and researcher focusing on collaborations across visual, performing, and media art forms and the role of the arts in social change. Jackson is Hadidi Professor and/or Affiliated Faculty in the departments Rhetoric; Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; Art Practice; History of Art; and New Media at UC-Berkeley, where she is also Associate Vice Chancellor for the Arts Design. In addition to numerous essays in journals and catalogues, her publications include Public Servants, In Terms of Performance, The Builders Association, Social Works, Valuing Labor in the Arts, Professing Performance, amongst others.