Syllabus V will be at Eastside Projects, Birmingham, over the weekend of 31 October to 3 November. Please note, we have already selected the participants for Syllabus V.

Syllabus V artists Sophie Blagden, Juliet Davis-Dufayard, Yuxin Jiang, Hwa Young Jung, Sarai Kirshner, Jack Lewdjaw, Sarah Maple, Duncan Poulton and Aliaskar Torkaliaskari are visiting Birmingham for their second retreat themed around the question "How can we hold our differences and remain gently radical while working with others?"

Thursday

The group are invited to a screening of the Jarman Award films at Eastside Project with a Q&A with Hetain Patel.

Friday

The group will meet writer, researcher and curator of 'The Past Is Now: Birmingham and Empire', Sumaya Kassim for an introduction to Birmingham. In the afternoon, the Syllabus V artists will visit art spaces in Birmingham.

Saturday

In the morning artist Linda Stupart will lead a workshop around making art during a moment of climate change. In the afternoon the group will visit Modern Clay for a workshop before leading a self-organised session amongst themselves. In the evening, Eastside Projects will host a dinner for the group and invited artists and curators from Birmingham.

Sunday

On the final day, the group will work with artistic advisor Louise Shelley to plan future sessions and take part in a reading group around “Queer Love, Gender Bending Bacteria, and Life after the Anthropocene" by Eben Kirksey.

Biographies

Sumaya Kassim is a writer and independent researcher. She was one of the co-curators of the exhibition ‘The Past is Now: Birmingham and Empire’ at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (2017-2018). She chronicled this experience in her essay ‘The Museum Will Not Be Decolonised’ (Media Diversified, 2017) which has been made into a short film with filmmaker Arwa Aburawa. Her recent article ‘The Museum is the Master’s House: an Open Letter to Tristram Hunt’ (Medium, 2019) challenged the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum to question his assumptions about what it means to live in colonial aftermaths. Her understanding of museums and institutions is informed by her writing practice, particularly the role of memory and futurity in making ourselves and our communities. She is currently writing a novel and a set of essays on whiteness and institutions. @SFKassim

Linda Stupart is an artist and writer from Cape Town, South Africa. Their work has been shown at Tate Galleries; Lisson Gallery; Nottingham Contemporary; De La Warr Pavilion; The Horse Hospital; Arnolfini and Raven Row. They recently produced Some Men Have Mistaken Me for Death, a play at the ICA with Carl Gent about climate change, queer sex, and Ecco the Dolphin. They are a lecturer in the Fine Art department at BCU.

Modern Clay is a studio project set up in 2017 and since 2019 has been run by co-operative membership. It is based in Digbeth, Birmingham and is a working studio run by its eight artist members: Leah Carless, Kate Egawa, Mark Essen, Joanne Masding, Sophie McKinney, Suzi Osborn, Laurie Ramsell and Sarah Taylor Silverwood.

Modern Clay provides a studio research facility for the production of ceramics. The co-operative also has a responsibility to be a benefit to the community and does this though its core values: artists, education and public. The studio is working to explore the reciprocating actions of this relationship, from providing artists access to a ceramic studio to also providing the same access to charitable groups and other relevant educational projects.