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Join the Toronto based collective Public Recordings for a facilitated reading and reflection on Jo Freeman’s influential essay “The Tyranny of Structurelessness”. Originally published in 1970, Freeman’s text reflects on her experiences in the 1960’s Women’s Liberation movement, as it sought to move from criticizing society to changing it. The essay examines the structural challenges of working in groups, and proposes a set of principles for democratic organization.
This event is being organized in conjunction with “What’s Collective?” a workshop that Public Recordings’ is facilitating at Studio 303 January 13th-17th. This event will be co-facilitated by Christopher Willes, Evan Webber, Liz Peterson (of Public Recordings) with support from independent curator and artist Danielle St-Amour.
Public Recordings is a collective based in Toronto since 2003. Led a team of Associate Artists, Public Recordings develops and presents hypotheses about group work using dance, theatre, music, publication and other collective gestures. Their work has been shown across Canada, Europe, Australia and Asia. Recent projects include a large-scale music and sound-based performance called To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation, and a site-specific theatre work called Other Jesus, presented by Festival TransAmériques in 2019.
Danielle St-Amour is an artist, writer, and curator. She has produced research-based exhibitions for SBC Gallery in Montreal (2019), and the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, Alberta (2014), amongst others. From 2016-2018, she was the Director at Art Metropole in Toronto. From 2014-2018 St-Amour was a member of the editorial advisory board for C Magazine, and was co-editor of the Poetry issue in 2016. St-Amour was the co-founder of critical publication REARVIEWS, a platform for reviewing exhibition reviews (2011-2016), as well as the exhibition space WWTWO in Montreal (2011-2013). From 2008-2013, she was a member of the experimental publishing collective palimpsest. She has exhibited, lectured, given workshops and published both nationally and internationally since 2009.
Liz Peterson is a performance maker based in Toronto and Melipilla, Chile, whose work investigates gesture, archetypes, autobiography and belonging. Her work has been presented in Canada, the US, Ireland, Spain and Chile. Since 2005 she has worked as a performer and collaborator with Aluna Theatre, Bad New Days, David Levine, EW&FCO, Jordan Tannahill, Life of A Craphead, Maryse Larivière, Melanie Gilligan, Oliver Husain, Peter Hinton, Philip McKee, and Small Wooden Shoe among others. She is a co-founder of performance collective Events in Real Time, and is currently an Associate Artist with Public Recordings. Liz is a graduate of the University of Toronto Drama Program.
Evan Webber is a writer, dramaturge and performance maker, whose work deals with the uses and effects of stories. An Associate Artist of Public Recordings, Evan’s collaborative work has been presented by Blackwood Gallery, Art Gallery of York University, the Bina Ellen Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Wiener Festwochen, Espace Libre, Sound Live Tokyo, TPAM-Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama, the Banff Centre, Brisbane Festival, Festival TransAmériques and others. He’s been twice nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, and his writing has been published in C Magazine, Canadian Theatre Review, The Coming Envelope, Geist and others.
Christopher Willes is based in both Toronto and Montreal, where he works as an artist, composer/musician, and researcher. His practice is situated between the forms and discourses of experimental music, performance, and the visual arts. His work has been presented across Canada, in the USA, and the UK, and he is currently an Associate Artist with Public Recordings. Christopher has had the honour of collaborating with many dance artists in Canada over the past decade as a sound-maker and dramaturge. He holds an MFA from Bard College (USA), and he was recently an artist-in-residence at the Toronto Public Library.