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RIVEN RATANAVANH




Come up with 3 ideas for projects that you think act as socially engaged art projects. Describe each with one paragraph each–visuals encouraged. These are thought experiments, and do not have to be something you can do right now.

In brainstorming this I was thinking about my favorite social practice projects / artists:
Cassandra Press
Trans Boxing
Public Assistants
Mimi Onuoha
Theaster Gates


1. A free radical trans pedagogy library / school.

Library would provide free readers / books from queer activists, with a focus on decolonizing queerness/queer studies (e.g. international non US perspective). Integrated into the library, artists can sell zines / artworks.
The library would be available online, it’d have occasional pop ups and perhaps later a physical space.
At the pop ups / physical space, somatic workshops / education would be available for free. I’d invite trans physical therapists to provide post-op care / and people can sign up for a meal train network.
Empower ppl to share or hold workshops.
(Online, I’m thinking a lot about https://www.genderbread.org which helped me a lot when I was questioning my gender).

2. A free QTBIPOC kink/BDSM education house. Would provide trauma-informed education on consent, negotiation, setting boundaries -- all of this as empowering practice applicable to navigating all of life!
Probably there’d be a website with resources e.g. to identify boundaries, limits, desires / enthusiastic consent. Occasional workshops and sessions on history of kink. Emphasis on how no space is a power neutral space (especially for BIPOC queer people), discussion of power relations in the everyday e.g. workspace, school, social, family.
- Easy entry: worksheets could be contributed by participants

How do we address fear, shame as barrier to entry? Help to guide beginners in.

- Consider privacy for participants even in person
- Consider cost: SFPC is EXPENSIVE!

Fawn freeze flight fight.
Trauma responses.?



3. An empowering movement workshop + online resources where participants come to engage in somatic exercises that create a container for embodied play.

Workshop description:

(Fight Flight Freeze) Fawn

Fawn is an empowering movement workshop where we will play with the 'fawn' response to perceived danger—in which we bend over backwards, act to appease the source of threat, or merge with their wishes and needs.

Fawn is open to any body who wants to learn how to feel fuller within their body and in relationship to others. By moving and writing we will collectively tune into ourselves and learn to say no, finding new spaces of somatic agency in the process.

No dance experience required.

Online resources would include worksheets, guided meditations, and readings.



Other ideas dump:
* A place for qtbipoc ancestral connection
* A trans self defense class / collective
* Space for collective mourning but about what? 
* A trans artists’ retreat. It would focus on art as healing practice. Would connect artists to artists, to institutions and sources of support. (begin to address some of the gaps with the lack of support for / wealth inequality that makes it easier for some to become working artists). Resource sharing + connections e.g. connecting photographers to performers for headshots.




Like scores -- setting up frameworks for people to do things.
The art is in setting up the situation, not the product.

- https://laundromatproject.org/people/manuel-molina-martagon/ 

Reading prompt: What makes the internet “public”? What makes it private?

The internet is public in that anyone can post,
Net neutrality (that all internet providers should treat internet traffic equally) can help make it more public, but not alone.

What makes it private are algorithms that group like people to like people -- positive feedback loops that reinforce culture/worldviews.
These include algorithms that put certain search results on top.
Although arguably in a sense public in that it affects most users of the internet, what makes the internet private are big companies.
Governance and censorship also makes it private.


U.S. Begins Privatizing Internet's Operations - The New York Times
The Privatized Internet Has Failed Us - Jacobin
https://reason.com/2015/05/01/where-were-you-in-1995-when-the-internet/