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Art and Extractivism Reading Group

Dates

23 & 30 May, 6 & 13 June, 2023 Hopscotch Reading Room (Berlin)
27 June 2022Kampnagel (Hamburg)
25 September 2022Casa Tranzit (Cluj)
23 September 2022Atelierele Malmaison (Bucharest)
14 September 2021Synth Library (Prague)
14 August 2021Kombinatas Left Festival (Lithuania)

The reading group prioritizes collective close reading as a deliberate counterpractice to Western academic hegemony, linguistic hierarchies, and the artificial divide between institutional and non-institutional knowledge. Sessions require no long-term commitment, centering accessibility for artists and workers excluded from academic resources or time-intensive research. Non-native speakers are supported through collaborative translation and definition.

The project interrogates how extractive dynamics—environmental (mineral/gas/water exploitation), intellectual (appropriation of ideas, sounds, labor), and aesthetic (“mining the for branding for branding)—permeate sonic and performative arts. It asks: How do hierarchical collaborations normalize extraction? Can such processes resist their own dynamics? What are the framework’s limits? How might reciprocal artist-subject-nature relations emerge?

Methodology

Participants select a text (chapter or excerpt) to read collectively during sessions, rejecting preparatory labor. Dialogue prioritizes utility for members’ real-world work over academic abstraction, resisting institutional pressures by centering non-academics. The group fosters engagement with critical theory outside traditional academic spaces, emphasizing lived experience over performative expertise.