Art Working Spirituality: Positionality & Intersectionality

A conversation on contemporary activations of indigenous and ancestral knowledge

Emergence 2018 Pre-Conference program

DATE: Sunday, June 10, 2018
TIME: 3–6PM
LOCATION: Black & White Projects, 2830 20th Street, SF

RSVP at https://em2018spirituality.eventbrite.com/

This workshop on contemporary activations of indigenous and ancestral knowledge, facilitated by Angela Mictlanxochitl Anderson Guerrero, is an opportunity for art workers to develop skills and approaches to working with artist, communities, and projects intersecting with spiritual and ancestral traditions.

The workshop is an opportunity for art workers to develop skills and approaches to working with artist, communities, and projects intersecting with spiritual and ancestral traditions, from the integration of re-claimed ritual practices to working historical archives tainted by dominant narratives. As the tides of neoliberalism becomes more choppy throughout the planet, cracks are being formed ushering a growing interests and reclaiming of ancestral knowledge, and practices through a contemporary lens. Although many celebrate these activations, they also raise questions of the white gaze, cultural appropriation, and complicity with business as usual in the arts industrial complex. This introductory workshop is an opportunity to pull at the strings of the very personal spiritual callings in the arts embedded in complicated social, economic, and political precarities.

The 3-hour workshop will cover:

• an overview and case studies of decolonial methodologies and border thinking in the arts uplifting the positionality and intersectionality of contemporary art projects;
• the role, purpose, and responsibilities of consent;
• and the contradictions, challenges, and possibilities for art workers collaborating with not only artist, but also with land, sacred objects, memories, subjugated histories, and knowledge holders.