Liminal Lab offered its first online, sliding scale program beginning in June of 2020.
Since then:
~ we’ve offered 40+ original workshop series across disciplines and practices to the public
~ we’ve presented a variety of other free events and programs, including the Summer 2020 12-week Performancy Forum: Corpus Coliseum series, and the [Move Semantics]: Rules of Unfolding roundtable and performance series, co-hosted with EFA Project Space
~ 50+ facilitators have joined our growing collective, and been invited to take part in training, planning and working towards future work-book publication projects and other resources [nearly all of whom are QTGNC, BIPOC, and/or disabled / chronically ill facilitators]
~ 300+ workshop participants have joined our programs
~ all of our classes are sliding scale, and over 50% of our participants have opted for precarity pricing levels from 90-50% off of standard registration fees or select our no cost options — which are always available, no questions asked
~ we’ve paid each of our facilitators not only a fair but often highly competitive wage, with the OS / LL taking only 20% of tuition and fees to cover administrative costs
Interested in supporting our programs, sponsoring low-and-no cost scholarships for participants, ensuring a living wage for all facilitators, and/or becoming a member with open enrollment in all our programs? Become a MEMBER of Liminal Lab!
Click here for more information and help us grow by becoming a member today!
The Operating System is thrilled to invite you to take part in our ongoing LIMINAL LAB programs! With Bucky Fuller’s adage about addressing a broken system by “building a new model to make the old model obsolete” still our core principal, we offer something different: an agile, all-access, experimental platform for anti-hierarchical, decolonial, peer to peer learning across disciplines, as well as a hub for resource sharing, performance, and collaboration. It is a project conceived of and managed by Elæ under the umbrella of the OS, with feedback loops from and in partnership with a rapidly growing pantheon of visionary facilitators and partner organizations.
Taking stock of our current crisis conditions and understanding these as predictable outcomes of the systems in place, we seek to create a safe haven for all learners, teachers, and creative agents looking to make change for ourselves and others, anticipating and strategizing to weather the fallout in the years to come.
Liminal Lab is designed with system sustainability, scalability, and long-term mutual aid for the most vulnerable in mind, as well as offering a model wherein we question WHO gets to learn, WHAT we learn, HOW we learn, WHERE we learn, and the value assigned to these. Our collective resources are vast, and yet institutions of learning have become bloated corporate arks for middle management, abusive of yet deriving their true value from those lucky enough to get a job at the bottom of the barrel––we believe deeply that there is another way. We’re committed to making tools for critical creative play, embodiment, ecological possibility, speculative future planning, radical economic and community models, resistance, and whatever else we need to continue to be together on this planet in a just future available to all with absolutely no barriers to access. Join us!
**Want to learn more? scroll down below our program information for a deeper dive into the intentions and hopes behind this project’s operations. And make sure to follow @liminallab and @the_operating_system on Instagram for new announcements and links!**
Collaborating organizations include:
BodyCartography Project, Antena Aire, UNDOING&DOING Collective, Turtle Disco, and Panoply Lab / Performancy Forum.
Please explore the independent upcoming programs of these wonderful collaborators at the links above! Programs presented collectively will appear for registration below.
Collaborator / facilitators include:
3dwardsharp, Samuel Ace, Chris Alexander, Steven Alvarez, Ashna Ali, Chloë Bass, Olive Bieringa, Lorene Bouboushian, Mathilda Cullen, Joey De Jesus, Kristen Gallagher, Stephanie Heit, MC Hyland, Mafe Izaguirre, Constantine Jones, Petra Kuppers, Shay Lawz, Jeff Kasper, Elæ Moss, Esther Neff, Melody Nixon, Urayoán Noel, Noah Ortega, Maryam Parhizkar, Alan Pelaez Lopez, mónica teresa ortiz, Margaret Rhee, Jennifer Scappettone, Chris Spinozzi, Orchid Tierney, Edwin Torres, Joanna C. Valente, Tatyana Tenenbaum, Zoe Tuck, Helen Yung, and Chloe Zimmerman.
Upcoming / Current Liminal Lab 2022 Offerings*:
*(all programs are online except where noted)
CRIP LIT FOR SPOONIES 2: WRITING DISABILITY and CHRONIC ILLNESS [6 wks, facilitated by Ashna Ali, starts 6/6 – click here to register and for more info!!]
LET’S GET PHYSICAL I and II: ARTICULATE + ARCHIVE // OBJECT + ORIENTATION [part II starts 8/1, click here to register and for more info!]
ERASURE: RECLAIMING ONESELF AMONG MONSTERS [RESCHEDULED! facilitated by Kristine Esser Slentz. check back in for new dates, click here for more info!!]
IT WAS REVEALED TO ME IN A DREAM: INTUITION and IMPROVISATION in PERFORMANCE [a 4-day intensive *in person* workshop facilitated by Noah Ortega, concluding in a public performance, August, dates TBA]
Stay tuned for new upcoming program listings from Joey De Jesus, Sherese Francis, Melody Nixon, Megan Milks and more…
Sample / Recent Programs Include:
2022
CREATING AN UNREASONABLE COLLEGE: An Experimental Pedagogy Lab — [4 wks, facilitated by Orchid Tierney, starts 2/5 – click here for more info!]
CRIP LIT FOR SPOONIES I — [6 wks, facilitated by Ashna Ali, starting 3/3 – click here for more info!]
2021
AFTER FRIENDSHIP: Walks with Celan — The 4th and Final Workshop in Zoe Tuck’s “A Year of Friendship Texts” series (6 wks, beginning 11/6 — click here for more info!)
MANIFESTO: a workshop with mónica teresa ortiz (5 wks, beginning 11/2 – click here for more info!)
Autonomous Mechanics :: Symptoms and Strategies of the Anarchist Body– with Elæ Moss — [6 wks, Tuesdays @ 7:30 EST starting 7/13 — click here for more info!]
Unmaking the Compartmentalized World: Poetics Against Possession– with Maryam Parhizkar — [6 wks, Thursdays starting 7/15 — click here for more info!]
A Year of Friendship Texts Pt 3: Friendship in Translation: Reading Friendship through Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend – w/ Zoe Tuck — [ 6 wks, Saturdays @ 12 EST, starting 7/17 — click here for more info!]
DIARY: Process, Attention, Time, Audience – with Ashna Ali and MC Hyland — [4 wks, Wednesdays, starting July 7; click for more info!]
Sensing Climate Hope: Ecopoetics and the Body — with Orchid Tierney — [4 wks, Thursdays starting 7/15 — click here for more info!]
Photo-Voice Poetics – with Steven Alvarez — [3 wks, Wednesdays starting 6/30; click here for more info!]
Mycelial De/composition – with Chloe Zimmerman — [a 2 session hybrid workshop: in person / Brooklyn on 6/26 & online 7/10 — click here for more info!]
HEIR/looms: Engaging Your Artistic Ancestors – with Cea / Constantine Jones — [6 wks, Thursdays, starting 6/10; click for more info!]
Tearing the Translation Curtain: Homophonics & Heteroglossia – with Mathilda Cullen — [6 wks, Sundays @ 1 EST, starting 4/11 — click here for more info!]
What to do with a Bad Idea – with UNDOING&DOING Collective — [6 wks over 3 months: 4/5 to 6/28 — click here for more info]
A Year of Friendship Texts Pt 2: SNATCHING LIBERTY: Reading Female Friendship in Toni Morrison’s SULA – w Zoe Tuck — [ 6 wks, Saturdays @ 12 EST — click here for more info]
[MOVE SEMANTICS: Rules of Unfolding] – a (free) conversation series with Elæ, Jeff Kasper & collaborating artists (in partnership with EFA) — Wednesdays at 7:30 EST, 3/31-4/28 — more info here!]
A Year of Friendship Texts Pt 1: STAR FRIENDS – with Zoe Tuck — [6 wks, Saturdays @ 12 EST, starting 2/20 — click here for more info & to register!]
Letters to the Land – with mónica teresa ortiz — [4 wks, Mondays @ 6 CST, starts 3/8; click here for more info & to register!]
Ecosomatic Practices for living and dying on a damaged planet – with Olive Bieringa / BodyCartography Project — [6 wks starting 3/16 — click here for more info & to register!]
Feel Recordings II: BODY SITE – with Edwin Torres — [6 wks, Saturdays @ 11 EST, starting 3/27 — click here for more info & to register!]
Contemplative Bodymind & Writing Practice – with Stephanie Heit – [4 wks, Saturdays 3-5 EST, starting 4/3 — click here for more info & to register!]
2020
Unsettling the Wor(l)d – with Joey De Jesus – [6 wks, Wednesdays @ 7:30 EST, starting 10/14] — Click here for more info!
Queer Phenomenology Creative Germinar – with Zoe Tuck – [6 wks, Saturdays @ 12-2 EST starting 10/24] — Click here for more info!
Reconciling the Body – with Shay Lawz — Click here for more info!
Counterpoetics of the Supply Chain – with Jennifer Scappettone — more info & registration coming soon!
Collective Translation Hackathon – with Kristen Gallagher and Chris Alexander — more info & registration coming soon!
Performancy Forum : Corpus Coliseum – with Panoply Performance Lab [a weekly performance series, Mondays] – Click here for more info
Alter/Alter III: Animal / Anarchy / Alchemy / Archive – with Elæ [6 wk – Summer Workshop / now available asynchronously] – Click here for more info!
Ghoul School : Reading Notley – with Zoe Tuck [Summer reading group]
Heat Islands: Climate Change and Grassroots Poetics – with Orchid Tierney — [4 wk summer workshop]
Feel Recordings: Hearing the Voice of the Body – with Edwin Torres [6 session summer workshop / now available asynchronously] — click here for more info!
Practicing Distance – with Jeff Kasper [Weekend Intensive, July 25-26, coming again soon]
Polyphonic Intersubjectivities: Mycelial Assemblage Beyond the Capitalocene – with Elæ & Special Guests [6 wk Summer Workshop]
Latinx Social Movements: Poetics & Politics – with Urayoán Noel [Check back in for a new workshop with Urayoán coming soon!]
Positive+ Storytelling: ABSTRACT [for potential reality] – with Constantine Jones [4 wk summer workshop / call to action for folx living with HIV/AIDS]
SOME BASIC FACTS:
- Liminal Lab is a project building off of the Operating System infrastructure, seeking to model and offer structural, administrative, and financial support to humans moving away from settler imperial institutional structures.
- Individuals and organizations will work in tandem with liminal lab to offer a broad range of programs and workshops, across different disciplines and skillsets all of which encourage the relearning of HOW TO HUMAN rather than HOW TO INSTITUTION — this means, for example, that there will be courses in various creative practices, but in conversation with and in tandem with somatics and movement for healing, medicine practices, permaculture, radical economics, histories of resistance, etc etc…
- One of our goals ultimately is to offer all people non elitist access to tools and considerations around ourselves and our world and its functions–to break down ideas around legitimacy, gatekeeping, and to excise barriers to playful, curious, permission. Obviously, we don’t have the capacity to actually offer this to “all people,” but the model is designed to be open source, ie: it can scale, function rhizomatically across a wide, nonhierarchical network, and be replicated for autonomous applications where productive to do so.
- All collaborators will be paid, period, and we will take a nominal amount, less than any institution we know of, of door / costs to support administrative work and infrastructure. Ultimately, the collaborator network and administrative network overlap, as we learn to support ourselves and each other. There are no boundaries or conceptual limits between “administrators” and “creatives,” here.
- All classes and events will have a recommended donation level for participation but there will be sliding scale on an honor system, as well as sponsorship options to sponsor others to take courses. There is an absolute NO BARRIER TO ACCESS policy. However, the OS/Liminal Lab reserves the right to remove any person from a program who creates an unsafe environment for others. All programming will be vetted and carefully designed to prohibit access to trolls and other online forms of verbal harassment and violence.
- All learning styles are considered and addressed, with synchronous and asynchronous versions available for programs, and attention given to access for persons with a range of disabilities, visible and non.
- We also seek to support access to and the redistribution of the vast amount of siloed resources that those of us teaching in institutions are holding, by encouraging faculty (especially those losing jobs) to retrofit their syllabi / courses for this infrastructure, offering their work to new and non-geographically limited audiences.
