CAPITAL, DRUGS AND THE SEARCH FOR ENCHANTMENT

All are welcome to join the conversation remotely on zoom here.
Reading: Silvia Federici’s Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (2018) (pdf) (audio)
Video: The Infernal Grove

Reading the text is not a requirement for participation in the discussion.

The study group will be livestreamed at The Blue Building Gallery (2482 Maynard Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia) where before the discussion viewers can see the Infernal Grove video installation and watch the 40-minute film at its heart.

The study group brings into dialogue a group of artists from across the continent who have lived experience with substance-use, and who represent a range of current relationships to sobriety and its alternatives. They will discuss “Re-enchanting the World: Technology, the Body, and the Construction of the Commons” from Silvia Federici’s book Re-Enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons.

In recovery programs, perhaps by necessity and certainly by design, there is a push to accept received wisdom. But for addict-intellectuals, it’s hard to forfeit critical thinking to recovery. In addiction, connection to the intellectual can become tenuous. It’s easy to lose the relationships and identities that support rigorous critical thinking. Recovery can mean recovering those relationships and identities.

This first session of the Study Group explores the notion of drug-taking as an adaptive strategy in a world stripped of ritual and connection to land.

The Infernal Grove Project exposes the disproportionate effects of public trauma (including the COVID pandemic) on drug users, especially addicts of color. It’s become an organizing principle in our thinking about this work: we need to show the connections between addiction and the socioeconomic forces that create and exploit it.

ig: @the_infernal_grove

The Infernal Grove Project takes place mostly on stolen Mi'kmaq and Onondaga land. To those who have allowed us to stay, we humbly extend gratitude and honour.

Monday October 11 is Indigenous Peoples' Day in the US. We observe the day with sorrow, solidarity and rage.