The past projects, programming and publications listed below engage the question in Lines of Inquiry 1, part of The Blackwood Index on Campus lightbox series. Prompted by the corresponding graphs on the Index, this selection of work exemplifies points of interaction within the Blackwood's ongoing programs. Together, these artists, writers and researchers attune us to the outgrowths, demands, and curiosities that the inquiries provoke.

Paul Maheke’s work evokes the political dimensions of self and collective care, fragility, and sustenance. As Habits of Care curator Helena Reckitt explains, “the video diptych in Mutual Survival, Lorde’s Manifesto (2015) juxtaposes two forms of dance, both filmed in the same East London community centre. As the title suggests, the piece also pays homage to the late black feminist writer Audre Lorde. In subtitles drawn from Lorde’s writings, selfcare is described as a practice of decolonization and feminist emancipation. A subwoofer placed on the floor across from the flat-screen monitors resonates in the visitor’s own body.”  Paul Makehe’s performance titled Seeking After the Fully Grown Dancer *deep within* initiates an authentic embodied dialogue with his audience. Following principles of Authentic Movement—including closing his eyes, engaging in mindfulness, and trying to move un-self-consciously in the presence of a witness— Makehe creates a unique performance that draws authenticity from spontaneity.

Do nerves, rivers, skies, spit, dreams, drool, and language separate or bind us? If scenes of intimacy are spaces of sharing, are they also spaces of separation? How can we attend to ethical dispositions, erotic edges, and aesthetic commitments to the world and those with whom we share it? How are the ethical and political being redefined by queer conceptions of intimacy and sex ecologies? As the earth’s resources are depleted and bodies are spent, how is our overflowing expressed? Is the future of our wet dreams to be realized at or beyond the edges of what is already known? How do the performing arts reconsider the intimacy between touching and trusting and knowing, and what is accounted for in that reconsideration? What can be learned or unlearned from intimacy coordination and choreography for new ways of acting, living, sensing, and thinking in this world? Erotic Edges, Queer Intimacy, Wet Dreams was part of The Attunement Sessions, a series of artistic provocations, thought-experiments, and experiential exercises that foregrounded the necessity for deeper attunement to the processes of destruction and disaster making the world as we know it (accumulation, alienation, contamination, disembodiment, displacement, extinction, extraction, settlement...) and forms of composing and imagining the future we want to live in (affinities, edgings, interdependencies, proximities, solarities, wet dreams…).

Four Industries is a three-channel film where an all-female choir recites sounds associated with Cincinnati’s major industries of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: metal casting, meatpacking, printing, and woodworking. Filmed in a historic brewery in Over-the-Rhine, the resulting a cappella chorus is rhythmic and repetitive, recalling the pouring, pounding, cutting, and hammering associated with the manufacturing of goods. By using the human voice to emulate mechanized sounds, Tania Candiani reminds us of the corporeal impact of labour—the bodies that were required to support the processing of raw materials during America’s Industrial Revolution. 

Accessibility 

The Blackwood Index on Campus is presented on four outdoor lightboxes in public spaces across the UTM campus. Some movement throughout the campus is required—ramps and curb cuts are in place. 

Download a printable map for your visit. 

Acknowledgements 

The Blackwood gratefully acknowledges the support of the University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council.