The opposite of an opposite: a study session convened by Serena Lee
The Ph.D. in Practice and South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC) would like to invite you to the coming Fantastic Wednesday event with Serena Lee. The event is organized as part of a monthly program of the Ph.D. in Practice of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84467137202
Opposite Day
is Serena Lee’s conversation-based project about and through embodied studying, stemming from her practice of taijiquan (‘taichi’ or internal martial arts) as artistic research. It is part of ‘ Missed Connections ’, a pedagogical and research platform facilitated by the South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC) based in Toronto that thrives on the intersections of various modes of thinking, doing and being. By bringing differing ideas, philosophies and artistic methodologies closer together, the platform’s ethos unfolds in the power and necessity of convergence.
Through a series of multiple one-on-one encounters over the past year, Serena has been in dialogue with artists, writers, and makers Alix Eynaudi, Leo Allenda, Sameer Farooq, Giles Bailey, Ruthia Jenrbekova, Fan Wu, and Sanne Oorthuizen. The study encounters have taken form as reiki, visualization meditations, drawing, (song) writing, walking, qi gong (breath work) and visiting museums.
As part of Missed Connections, Serena will convene The opposite of an opposite, a study session with her study partners. This public gathering, hosted online and in person (in Vienna), will share glimpses of the ongoing study encounters that map notions of opposites, dualities, dissonance, questioning phenomenological and ideological separations that inform and are reinforced by colonialism/ modernism.
The opposite of an opposite will bring together these study partners and conversations for the first time; this gathering will involve discussion, participatory somatic activities, and a talk by complementary medicine practitioner, Lynn Teo, who will trace dualism within healing practices such as acupuncture and shiatsu.
Please join us for this open-ended experiment in studying together, either online or in person. The reading list has been accompanying Serena and her study partners for the past year and can be accessed on SAVAC’s website: https://savac.net/opposite-day/
(Following the new Covid regulations, the in-person meeting is exclusive to the Ph.D. candidates only. Please note that it is important to follow required Covid safety measures for physical attendance.)