With For About 2020

A slow conference for a fast evolving crisis

20 May to 17 June 2020

With For About is made with love by Heart of Glass in partnership with Live Art Development Agency (GBR), Create Ireland, Gessnerallee (CHE), Sophiensaele (DEN) New Theatre Institute of Latvia  (as part of ACT: Art, Climate, Transition project co-financed by the Creative Europe programme), A Blade of Grass (USA), Stroll PDX with PICA (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art) (USA) and Migrants in Culture.

Special thanks to British Council Indonesia, Gill Lloyd, Carl Davies, Heather Almond, Pam Vision, Stephanie Lu and Madlove Ltd.

Funders: Arts Council England, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Gessnerallee.

• Call for artistic/academic/activist contributors

About

What creative solutions have marginalised people developed to survive before Covid-19?

What creative ways of being and organising are being made now in response to Covid-19?

How do we embed and share  these solutions, ways of being and organising now and into the future?

In these fast moving times we need to move both swiftly and slowly. That’s why for this year’s annual conference, Heart of Glass has adapted their intended plans. Working with artist and mental health activist ‘the vacuum cleaner’, curator and agitator Cecilia Wee and a stellar line up of international artists, activists and academics, With For About 2020 creates a vital, slow and complex space between art, activism, care and social practice in response to COVID 19. It wilfully asks –  in facing this crisis, another ten years of austerity, ecological collapse, harsher borders, more racism and deeper ableism within deeply divided societies – how can artists, activists and organisations make vital change within our communities and beyond?

When?

With For About 2020 will happen over 5 weeks between 20 May and 17 June, and will last for one hour each week.

How?

With For About 2020 will feature short video provocations, sharings of practice and projects and discussion of various responses by artists and activists, all streamed into your home. It has intentionally been designed to work around the shifting nature of these times – allowing for work care, fluctuating schedules and new contributors to be added.

Themes

Themes will be mixed together to allow a truly intersectional understanding of CARE WORK, CLASS, COLONIALISM, DISABILITY, ECOLOGY, FEMINISM, LAW, MENTAL HEALTH, MIGRATION, MUTUAL AID, INTERNATIONAL ORGANISING, LGBTQ+, RACISM, SOCIAL PRACTICE, SURVEILLANCE  – all under the framework of Justice and Rights based approaches.

Each week of provocations will have space for ‘in the moment’ responses and be followed by a space for viewers to respond in an attempt to share and build on ways of doing, organising and making that resonate across communities and locations. We aim to create a radical response to WTF is happening, and confront the increasingly distressing reality so many communities continue to face.

Access

The event will try to be as accessible as possible, though we acknowledge this will be challenging with the technology and resources available. Please communicate with us about your access requirements, however you define access. Whether that is around disability, white spaces, money, access to the internet, child care, institutional transphobia or other forms of exclusion. We are not perfect, and want to do better. You can contact us via: [email protected]

Click here to read Heart of Glass’ Safer Spaces Policy.