Never Not in Crisis: Forms of Calamity in Catastrophic Times Symposium
 

How do we come together in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic? What forms of literature, music, theory, & visual art will facilitate the forms of community we need? This symposium explores how to engage with the forms of suffering the COVID-19 pandemic has made visible on a global scale, alongside its multiplying aftershocks and afterlives—from economic instability to the War in Ukraine.

Events associated with Never Not in Crisis take place in the Chicago area, Wednesday and Thursday, October 26 and 27, and in the Phoenix area, Saturday, October 29.

All the events can also be attended on Zoom.

The schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, Oct. 26, 6018North: Chicago's Home for Experimental Arts and Culture
4pm (MST) / 6pm (CDT) to 6:45 (MST) / 8:45pm (CDT)
6018 N. Kenmore Ave.
Chicago, IL 60660
Zoom: https://asu.zoom.us/j/86907313768

4pm (MST)/6pm (CDT): Suzette Martin, artist's talk on Viral Load, a series of large-scale drawings addressing collective loss during the time of the pandemic.

4:45pm (MST)/6:45pm (CDT): Break to view Martin's Viral Load series, including a virtual tour.

5pm (MST)/ 7pm (CDT): Penelope Papailias (University of Thessaly), "Future Relics of a Damaged Planet I" keynote lab designed to create objects memorializing the time of the pandemic to travel to Tempe. Prompt will be circulated to registrants by Oct. 15.

8pm (CDT): Artist-designed catered dinner celebrating community and survivance (available to in-person attendees, only)

Thursday, Oct. 27, Midway Plaisance/Former site of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Midway Gardens/Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, University of Chicago
7am (MST) / 9am (CDT)
Logan Center for the Arts
Chicago, IL 60637
Zoom: https://asu.zoom.us/j/86907313768

7am (MST) / 9am (CDT): GRAY SOUND: Corey D. Smith performs first part of "MIDWAY—A Performance Lecture," a musical and performance art piece commissioned as part of this Myers Foundations symposium. Smith's piece engages with Frank Lloyd Wright's "Midway Gardens," a former concert/entertainment venue on the South Side of Chicago that was demolished in the aftermath of the 1918 Pandemic and 1929 Financial Crisis.

Thursday, Oct. 27, Trienens Forum, Northwestern University
11:30am (MST)/1:30pm (CDT) to 2:45pm (MST)/4:45pm (CDT)
1880 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Zoom: https://asu.zoom.us/j/86907313768

11:30am (MST)/1:30pm (CDT): Futures of Theory roundtable, featuring Nicole Anderson (Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona State University), Zachary Cahill (Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, University of Chicago), and Christina Kiaer (Art History, Northwestern University)

1pm (MST)/3pm (CDT): Aesthetics of Engagement roundtable, featuring Mel Keiser (Death Studies Workshop, Northwestern University), Devin T. Mays (Regards Gallery), Ruslana Lichtzier (Art History, Northwestern), and Seth Brodsky (Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, University of Chicago)

Saturday, Oct. 29, Arizona Biltmore, A Waldorf Astoria Resort, Paradise Garden
9am (MST) / 11am (CDT) to 10am (MST) / 12pm (CDT)
2400 East Missouri Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85016
Zoom: https://asu.zoom.us/j/86907313768

9am (MST) / 11am (CDT): Corey D. Smith performs second part of "MIDWAY—A Performance Lecture," a musical and performance art piece commissioned as part of this Myers Foundations symposium. Smith's piece engages with Frank Lloyd Wright's "Midway Gardens," a former concert/entertainment venue on the South Side of Chicago that was demolished in the aftermath of the 1918 Pandemic and 1929 Financial Crisis. Two sprite statues produced by Wright's student, Alfonso Ianelli, for the Midway Gardens now reside in the Paradise Garden at the Arizona Biltmore Resort.

9:50am (MST) / 11:50am (CDT): Ron Broglio (Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona State University) responds to the desert ontological valences of Smith's performance.

Saturday, Oct. 29, Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona State University
1:30pm (MST) / 3:30pm (CDT) to 5pm (MST) / 7pm (CDT)
Ross-Blakley Hall 181
1102 South McAllister Avenue
Tempe, AZ 85287
Zoom: https://asu.zoom.us/j/86907313768

1:30pm (MST) / 3:30pm (CDT): Artist's workshop by Mel Keiser and Corey Smith

3:30pm (MST) / 5:30pm (CDT): Penelope Papailias (University of Thessaly), "Future Relics of a Damaged Planet II" keynote lab designed to create objects memorializing the time of the pandemic to travel to the Vale of Tempe, in Greece. Prompt will be circulated to registrants by Oct. 15.
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The symposium is organized by Jacob Henry Leveton, Program Coordinator of the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University, and Tamar Kharatishvili, PhD Candidate in the Department of Art History at Northwestern University.

We are grateful to acknowledge the funding and logistical support of the Myers Foundations, the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, the Department of Art History, the Department of English, the Chabraja Center for Historical Studies, the Program in Environmental Policy and Culture, the Department of Anthropology, the Program in Comparative Literary Studies, the Department of Philosophy, the Department of German, the Department of French and Italian, and the Science in Human Culture Program, at Northwestern, and the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago.

Image: Alfonso Ianelli, two "Sprite" statues for Frank Lloyd Wright's Midway Gardens in Chicago, now at Paradise Garden of Arizona Biltmore Resort. Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress