Unsettle the Future:
Re-Story, Research, & Reclaim Indigenous Sexualities & Relations
November 7-9, 2019
Symposium & Tipi Confessions Show
Join us at the University of Alberta for the RELAB launch symposium, Unsettle the Future: Re-Story, Research, & Reclaim Indigenous Sexualities & Relations.
The symposium will feature “research-creation” presentations. That is, research and creative works that are co-constituted, that infuse and inform one another. Such work is sometimes also referred to as “arts-based research.” Given the symposium theme, we want to hear your stories, performances, practices or fantasies that unsettle settler-colonial presence, including visions of the future, to disrupt and queer settler attachments to linear, progressive time. We are calling for radical storytellers to connect a broad range of re-storying practices – performance, art, podcasting, virtual gaming, media, etc. to share how their storytelling disrupts settler narratives and envisions alternatives of reclaiming relations.
The symposium will open Thursday evening November 7, with a keynote lecture by Prof. Jason Edward Lewis of The Initiative for Indigenous Futures, followed by a day and a half of panels on Friday-Saturday, November 8-9. The symposium will feature on Friday evening a Tipi Confessions sexy storytelling and cabaret show. Research-creation presentations should be submitted to the symposium. Performances suitable for the stage should be submitted to Tipi Confessions.
Tipi Confessions is a live storytelling show on sex, sexuality, and gender, featuring performance and anonymous audience confessions. We highlight Indigenous, decolonial, political, humourous, creative, feminist, queer, and educational perspectives. We seek diverse voices, especially if stories like yours often go untold. We are an ALL-INCLUSIVE enterprise: we welcome storytellers and performers of all genders, races, sexualities, and abilities. We encourage you to submit sexually-themed stories and performances. Your performance doesn’t need to be “erotic” (although we love well-crafted erotica), but it should pertain positively to sex and sexuality. We want stories that fit our mission of ethics, education, and entertainment. Our shows, held 3-4 times per year in Edmonton, across Canada, and internationally, feature spoken word readings, personal narrative, memoir, fiction, burlesque, live music, and short theatre performances. We are also open to stand-up comics, video clips, and lively short lectures.
Please submit questions to RELAB RA
Kirsten Lindquist
Email: kirstenl@ualberta.ca