During this tumultuous moment in time, in the midst of a pandemic still unfolding, FAB will be working differently this year, moving our attention towards reuse, re-work, rest and reconnection. Building on the digital gatherings we facilitated over the last two years of the pandemic, we are foregrounding methods of attunements and slowness to convene around Traces and Threads. Traces and Threads is a slow network of remote gatherings and performance writings convened by FAB across 2022.

Traces

Lost works, unpublished manifestos, future imaginings and cancelled gatherings will be reanimated through a collaborative writing project that traces the tendrils of connection of FAB across its history. Traces is an interactive website in which you can add, alter, and arrange unfinished or unpublished materials from our shared Future Advisory Board (FAB) archive. A piece of space junk “accidentally” crashes into the moon, an act of “cosmic littering.” Orbital debris. Most deliberate. This, however, is unintentional. How can we have an unintentional intention? A refusal to add more cosmic refuse? To try our own detritus? In short, what are the threads we lost, dropped, or left woven? Rather than extending the orbit of our debris further and further through the continual production of the novel, this project invites us to look back at what we quit and rehome these offcuts by stitching them into a new patchwork. In response to the overwhelming imperative to return to pre-pandemic ‘productivity’, FAB has shifted our mode of practice to forge a new kind of gathering of FAB participants—through the slow, collaborative dredging of our co-created ‘labour debris’. This project takes up the question of where and how performance research happens in and through collectives, be they temporary, accidental or disparate; and what ecologies of knowledge emerge and disappear within these. We invite you to contribute with postings of documents, reflections, and junk from lost works, unpublished manifestos, fleeting memories, cancelled gatherings, and other objects of potentiality. All future-imaginaries (past, present and joining FAB members, intersecting communities or provocateurs) are welcomed to participate. The platform will be open from June 20 until December 31, 2022. After which point it will be locked from editing, visible to the public but transformed into a read-only digital artefact. You can start posting here. We look forward to the hidden histories, materials and secrets you might share and discover.

Threads

Reworking the assumed modes of academic gathering, we will also be supporting a series of ‘unreading’ groups. This project collaborates with already established reading groups, research communities and academic conferences to ask how it might be possible to ‘recycle’ habitual modes of gathering in support of rest and reconnection. Below is information for our first Threads event as part of the Performance Studies international Hunger Conference. Taster Session—a presentation and mini workshop on “HOT POT TALK: Cooking up Recipes” by Chong Gua Khee (Singapore) Duration: 2½ to 3 hours Date: July 6, 7-10pm Singapore time (GMT +8), over Zoom Guest Speaker: Chong Gua Khee (Singapore), organised by FAB What makes a recipe, a recipe? Is it in the nature of instructions written and executed with precision, unchanging through time? How do recipes evolve with – and reflect – those who create, carry, and share them? Besides heirloom dishes and comfort food, what other recipes can we cook up that help us tell our stories to ourselves and those around us, and invite conversations and better understanding? In this taster session organised by the Future Advisory Board (FAB), Gua Khee will be offering some context for the trajectory of this newest iteration of the HOT POT TALK series (2017-ongoing), including questions and desires around food dignity in relation to the affluent Singapore city-state’s sizeable but often invisible and marginal migrant and transient worker community. She will also facilitate a short exercise in recipe-writing, inviting attendees to reflect on their cultural histories and speculative futures. HOT POT TALK: Cooking up Recipes is a participatory project that looks at the ‘recipe’ as a means of exchange and transmission of cultural information, personal memory, diasporic / migrant identity, ownership, and agency. Through a series of facilitated workshops with migrant workers in Singapore, followed by a process of in-depth conversations (informed by a conversation score), writing, and annotation exercises, this project will culminate in the creation of (i) a virtual exhibition; and (ii) a zine of annotated food and non-food related ‘recipes’ that will add to our current narratives about food and identity in Singapore, particularly for a demographic whose stories are often overlooked. This project is part of a long-term series of works by artist Chong Gua Khee (Singapore) and her collaborators. Gua Khee is a performance-maker, director, dramaturg, and facilitator whose practice seeks to create and hold intimate, playful and porous spaces for bodily encounters and connections to happen. This workshop is presented as part of the annual Performance Studies international conference, where the theme this year is ‘Hunger’. The PSi conference this year is an entirely virtual event and registration includes access to this workshop as well as the full conference program. To register or find out more see the PSi website. FAB are providing a limited number of workshop spaces for non fee-paying participants (this will not include access to the rest of the PSi conference). These places are for FAB-associated members for whom the cost of registration to the PSi Hunger conference is prohibitive. If you would like to be considered for a place, simply register here and we will be in touch.