4.30-6.30pm
opening event reading group: Under/Valued Energetic Economies
with Raju Rage and invited guests - exploring self publishing and alternative archives.
 
A reading group with invited guests will open up key themes of the exhibition prior to the opening at 6.30pm-8pm.  We will be reading together, with drinks, snacks* and conversation, exploring several approaches that address the politics of self publishing, both digital and print, that inform alternative archive making. We will be reading Mimi Thi Nguyen on Queer Punk Politics and the archive, and discuss the Kitchen Table Press, zine culture, and other self-published materials, queerying the institutionalisation of radical queer politics, and strategies for creating our own platforms.  Places are limited for the reading group due to space, but if you would like to join us please send an email to info@bannerrepeater.org stating your interest.

 *drinks and snacks kindly handcrafted by Queer Masala.

 
6.30-8pm
Exhibition opening: Under/Valued Energetic Economy 
Workshops:  Sun 3rd November and Sun 1st December.

Under/Valued Energetic Economy is a term inspired by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and informs the title for the installation, and work in progress by Raju Rage at Banner Repeater, that maps out the tangled ecology between "activism", "arts" and "academia".  Rage prioritises their interest in kitchen table conversations, and the knowledge’s that are produced during them, placing the Under/Valued Energetic Economy map with other items, on a trestle table top in the gallery space.  Highlighting informal strategies of organising, and placing emphasis and value on creativity and collectivity, the map also informs an integral part of the work exploring alternative archival practice that will take the form of several workshops to be held during the exhibition period. The Under/Valued Energetic Economy map is representative of Rage’s work in developing alternative archiving of his/her/theirstories in digital and print formats, with consideration to the ethics, curation, framing and sites they are created and placed in.  The map is inspired by the lineages of the Kitchen Table Press (women of colour communities) in 1980’s, queer feminist DIY organising in 2000’s and anti capitalist movements, and is part of an ongoing process of thinking through knowledge, care and value, by highlighting connections, problems and strategies.

It includes short audio interviews with various artists, activists and academics which unpack the themes in the map, which can be heard in the project space throughout the exhibition period, and include contributions from: Zadie Xa, Daniella Valz Gen, Victoria Sin, Trishna I, Ari de B, Tarek Lakhrissi, Fanny Aboulker, Sandeep Bakshi.  Reading material and publications selected by Raju Rage exploring radical archival practices, and under-represented perspectives, will also be available to read in the project space and reading room.

During the months of exhibition, two workshops will begin the process of archiving the material collected by the artist and other contributors to the Under/Valued Energetic Economy map, exploring and developing methods and strategies appropriate for the archiving of his/her/theirstories, with attendees of the workshops.  The project is very much a work in progress and if you have materials that you would like to add to Raju Rage’s alternative archive, or would like to be interviewed, please contact info@rajurage.com or Banner Repeater. 

The workshops are supported by the Digital Archive of Artists Publishing technical team project leader: Lozana Rossenova, currently completing her PhD in Digital Archive Design at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image in collaboration with leading digital art organization Rhizome, and Cicilia Östholm (PhD student, Fine Art/Humanities RCA), co-initiator of equal voices in the room? that address’ bias and inequality through technological intervention.  The work is part of the broader project of developing a Digital Archive of Artists Publishing at Banner Repeater, as an interactive, user-driven, searchable database (with Wikimedia UK), that aims to privilege anecdotal histories and multiple perspectives alongside factual data, to establish an important new precedent in digital as well as analogue archival practice.  The archive project is committed to challenging the politics of traditional archives that come of issues regarding inclusion and accessibility from a post-colonial, critical gender and LGBTQI perspective, to ensure an equitable and ethical design process occurs throughout the archive development. More details on the Digital Archive project can be found here.

 
Raju Rage is an interdisciplinary artist who is proactive about using art, education and activism to forge creative survival. Based in London and working beyond, they explore the spaces and relationships between dis/connected bodies, theory and practice, text and the body and aesthetics and the political substance. Their current interests are around value, conditions, sustainability, care and resistance. They are a member of Collective Creativity arts collective and a creative educator with an interest in radical pedagogy.

Raju has a theirstory in activism, self and collective organised queer/ transgender/ people of colour movements and creative projects in London and beyond from which their politics and works draw on and from.
 

Contributors and References:

Alexia Pauline Gumbs, Kitchen Table Press, Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith, Owens, Daniella Valz Gen, Taylor Le Melle, Jin Haritaworn, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Zadie Xa, Victoria Sin, Trishna I, Stuart Hall, D’bi Young, Kerri Jeffris and Sophie Chapman, Kyla Harris, Yalini Dream, Evan Ifekoya, Rebekah Ubuntu David, Rena Onat, Blackwood Gallery Toronto, Letters and Handshakes, Ari de B, Tarek Lakhrissi, TextaQueen, Arts Students Union, Barbara Paul and Josch Hoenes, RUKUS!, Fanny Aboulker, Sandeep Bakshi, Precarious Workers Brigade, Collective Creativity, PSS, a group of artists, anon….plus more!