Open Hearing: Call for Community Participation

March 2nd, 3 - 7PM at Cafeteria

https://www.instagram.com/p/DFu4hP0xzxm/?igsh=emlsYTBqZ20zODZr

hosted by EMILIA-AMALIA, with support from C magazine and Mercer Union

"Open Hearing: Dreaming in Dark Times" is an open discussion around the future of the Toronto art ecosystem. Based on the structure of a town hall, and inspired by the Art Workers Coalition's "Open Hearing" held in New York in 1969, the event is intended to generate conversation, ideas and solutions for the wide range of problems facing our community right now.

Organizing against the genocide in Gaza and recent waves of anti-Palestinian racism have had a chilling effect in the cultural world, including unjust firings, artistic and political censorship, and politically motivated funding cuts. Artists and arts workers have made gains against these inequalities, charting new paths forward and generating new models for solidarity. But these efforts have also laid bare many pre-existing and longstanding problems at the heart of our cultural structures.

Over the last year, we have spent endless hours discussing these issues privately in studios, galleries, bars and parties, at work and online, in the street, at home, here and abroad. "Open Hearing" hopes to bring together a wide range of artists and art workers to share these conversations openly and in community, in order to imagine a new way forward.

"Open Hearing: Dreaming in Dark Times" will focus on the future of the arts sector, on what can be built together, on what remains possible, and on what our vision of a viable, just, livable art world looks like.

Anyone interested in participating is invited to present a statement, no longer than 4 minutes, to an audience of peers and colleagues at a public meeting March 2nd, 2025. Statements may be philosophical, material, strategic, experimental, poetic, political, performance-based.

The form is up to the speaker.