Reading Room #36: Self-Organised

The ninth in a series of Reading Rooms around the library of the American thinker and organiser Fred Dewey, a collective reading and discussion proposed by Jesse van Winden at La Chose Royale
13/11/2024, 18-20:30h

“People are more willing to talk … when they’re sharing something deeply meaningful with each other. That’s why poetry becomes the foundation of a new kind of dialogue.” (Fred Dewey)

Dewey had a fierce commitment to creating public spaces for intellectual and political engagement. His home base was Los Angeles, but the last years of his life he spent in Brussels. In 2022 Dewey died unexpectedly. To ensure the continuation of his legacy, the Fred Dewey Legacy Project was initiated, aiming to set up initiatives that extend Dewey’s work, as well as preserve his considerable library.

Summer 2023 artists Filip van Dingenen and Hélène Meyer re-installed part of Dewey’s extensive library. They are opening up his collection of books to artists and researchers from their studio home. One way to activate this library is Jubilee’s 2024 Reading Room program. This program performs a collective knowledge transfer – using the library as a situated research tool from which each Jubilee artist can select a title and propose it for a collective reading and discussion session.

This reading room is proposed by Jesse van Winden, who selects writings included in Self-Organised (2013). This book edited by Stine Hebert & Anne Sfezer Karlsen contains new writing by Jakob Jakobsen and Jan Verwoert, among many others. How can we understand the logic and modes of artist-run initiatives, in an encompassing way but against the political backgrounds of our times that create the need of self-organisation in the first place? And in a long tradition of political and social self-organising, what particular role play artistic self-organised initiatives?

 

Calendar of Fred Dewey Reading Rooms 2024

23 January: Reading Room #28: Fred Dewey and School of Public Life proposed by Filip Van Dingenen

13 February: Reading Room #29: Fred Dewey and The Ignorant Schoolmaster proposed by Clémentine Vaultier

19 March: Reading Room #30: Fred Dewey and Art as Experience proposed by Maximiliaan Royakkers

23 April: Reading Room #31: Fred Dewey and Walter Benjamin proposed by Vincent Meessen

May: no Reading Room

11 June: Reading Room #32: Fred Dewey reading a collection of images proposed by Ciel Grommen, Maximiliaan Royakkers and Clémentine Vaultier (of the project Atlas of Ovens)

2 July: Reading Room #33: Fred Dewey and the Brechtian theatre proposed by Louise de Bethune. Part of Commons to Coop, Jubilee’s Summer School 2024 at Kunsthal Gent

August: no Reading Room

16 September: Reading Room #34: Fred Dewey and the cooperative, proposed by Vermeir & Heiremans

14 October: Reading Room #35: The Force of Listening, proposed by Stijn Van Dorpe

13 November Reading Room #36: Self-Organised, proposed by Jesse van Winden

 

Each reading room takes place from 18-20:30h. Soup and bites are provided

 

Location Reading Room #36: La chose royale
Rue Royale Ste. Marie 107 / Koninklijke Sinte-Mariastraat 107
1030 Brussels