We invite the public to join us for a participatory experiment in poetics that will engage acts of dismantling, re-contextualizing, and performing language, as well as exposing the institutions and systems it represents. Elaine Cameron-Weir’s creative process and sculptural practice is informed by found text—”raw language” culled from varying sources, including technical manuals, scientific field research, and other niche and non-literary genres—as well as her own writings that draw on and transform these existing texts. Within the context of poetry, these source materials and the knowledges they enact become strange, fragmentary, weakened or emboldened, and raise speculation about other ways of seeing, thinking, and being in the world. After a brief conversation about her relationship to language in STAR CLUB REDEMPTION BOOTH, Cameron-Weir, alongside Associate Professor and poet and educator Amaranth Borsuk, will guide participants through a creative process of dismantling and re-contextualizing language for poetic reflection and subversion.

This small group program is open to anyone interested in the relationship between writing and visual arts practices. No set level of experience in either field is required. We ask that you please sign up for this event by September 7 to receive instructions, including a request to contribute to the development of the program’s community agreements, as well as to stay informed about our safety protocols. Participants will also be asked to bring in non-literary source materials that will act as your “works cited”—your building blocks of language for experiments in poetic form and content.