LILLIAN ALLEN / CHRISTINA BATTLE / RAYMOND BOISJOLY / DEANNA BOWEN / JOSHUA CHAMBERS-LETSON / KEYON GASKIN / CHE GOSSETT / SEAN D. HENRY-SMITH / IMANI ELIZABETH JACKSON / STEFFANI JEMISON / AISHA SASHA JOHN / JESSICA LYNNE / CHARMAINE NELSON / M NOURBESE PHILIP / TINA POST / KRYS VERRALL / KANDIS WILLIAMS / BEAR WITNESS

November 22 – 24 2019
Toronto Media Arts Centre (and other locations)
32 Lisgar St. Toronto, ON

See full schedule at bodiesbordersfields.com

A “simultaneous conversation” took place on August 16, 1967 between seven speakers in Toronto and New York with the cooperation of Bell Telephone Company, the CBC and artscanada magazine (formerly Canadian Art). This cross-border conversation was recorded and published in that year’s October issue of artscanada which was dedicated to ‘black’ as a concept, painterly medium, symbol as well as socio-political category, expression and status.

Convened by Denise Ryner in collaboration with Yaniya Lee, Bodies Borders Fields, is a free, public symposium that re-imagines the 1967 conversation about “blackness” with particular attention to blackness and fugitivity as represented in critical art practices today. Responding to an absence of black experience in the conversation between the 1967 panelists—an absence that has since been examined by writers Fred Moten, Krys Verrall and others—Bodies Borders Fields will dislocate the original panel discussion to contemporary contexts and representations of black and blackness in sound, performance and visual culture with respect to black social life and expression.

Bodies Borders Fields supports ongoing and future discussions of blackness as an ever shifting, circulating and transforming factor for the survival and destabilization of colonial systems and institutions. All are welcome, especially those who recognize their own stake in contemporary readings of black and blackness as both signifier and lived-experience.

All roundtables, talks and panels are free and open to the public.

Register for the symposium here.

Additional, individual registration is required for the following events as capacity is limited.

WORKSHOP: Writing with Jessica Lynne
Saturday November 23 | 11:00AM
Register here

WORKSHOP: Aesthetics of Black Performance and Sound with Steffani Jemison
Saturday November 23 | 3:00PM
Register here

PERFORMANCE BRUNCH: SUN/SEA with Sean D. Henry-Smith and Imani Elizabeth Jackson
Sunday November 24 | 11:00AM
Register here

WORKSHOP: 

I AM MOTIVATED BY THE DESIRE TO EXPERIENCE A SENSE OF JUSTICE with Aisha Sasha John
Sunday November 24 | 4:00PM
Register here

Presented by Trinity Square Video, Or Gallery, and the Toronto Media Arts Centre. Generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts