From Below: Poetry and Social Justice
Thursday, May 31, 7pm

How do we make the world we want to live in? How does art help us re-imagine social and political reality? We want to answer these questions by exploring the places where poetry and political activism intersect — and, maybe just as crucially, interrogating places where they don’t. Poetry, too often, is seen by activists as a mere decoration; activist community-building, too often, is treated by poets as an aesthetic choice. We need new approaches to both meaning-making and community organizing if we want to make radical change. From Below is a poetry and discussion series that aims to get this conversation started.

Join Interference Archive for a public reading and discussion on intersections of poetry and labor organizing with Mark Nowak, members of the Worker Writers School, members of Retail Action Project, and local community college students and retail workers. The reading will be proceeded by a writing workshop for local community college students who work in retail or service industries. RSVP if this is you and you’d like to join us for the workshop.

Weed and Seed Walk with Next Epoch Seed Library
Saturday, June 2, 2pm

The Next Epoch Seed Library has reimagined your typical seed bank in the face of climate change; their library collects plant species that live in close association with humans, but that have not been planted or maintained purposefully; in short, weeds! Growing where others can’t or won’t, these plants are best adapted to live in the long shadow we throw on the landscape. Join Interference Archive and the Next Epoch Seed Library for an afternoon weed walk through Gowanus. After we explore, we’ll head back to Interference Archive for a conversation about some of the material in our archival collection that helps us understand climate change and sustainability. Visit our website for more info.

Interested in walking with us? Meet us at the end of 2nd Avenue where it hits the Gowanus Canal, by Gowanus Canal Conservancy Salt Lot. (This address is 2 2nd Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215, near the corner of 2nd Ave and 5th street — NOT the 2 2nd Ave in Sunset Park). For those who cannot join us for the walking portion of this event but would like to take part at Interference Archive, we’ll be returning to the archive between 2:45 and 3pm.

We plan to go ahead with this walk in the event of light rain, so please bring an umbrella and/or rain jacket. If the rain is hard and steady, watch for updates from us -- in that case, we'll just meet at Interference Archive.

An Agitprop Scavenger Hunt
Tuesday, June 5, 7-9pm

Our upcoming exhibition, Educate Agitate Organize!, looks at several different facets of the creation of agitprop. One thing we’re excited to explore is the way that the same symbols are reused across time and place by various movements, as acts of solidarity, as a way to create identity, and to communicate similar or disparate messages.

We want you to help us explore this! Join us on June 5 for an agitprop scavenger hunt. We’ll give you a short list of symbols to hunt for, and we’ll provide an orientation on how to find material in the archive. Then it’ll be your turn to explore and see what you can find!

This event is a great way to get to know the archive more: no experience working with archival collections is necessary, and we hope you’ll come dive in with us! Questions? Feel free to send us an email.

Radical Discipline:
Exploring the Reasons Children Are Punished, and Alternative Suggestions
DATE CHANGE: Saturday, June 16, 3pm-4:30pm

Radical Playdate presents an open and personal caregiver discussion about disciplining and punishing children—is there ever a need to punish children? How were we punished as children, and what repercussions did that have on us? What are some alternative models for punishment that we can employ as radical caregivers? To frame our discussion, China Martens has generously shared an issue of her exploratory zine on radical parenting. Visit our website for more info and to download a copy of the zine.

Our Comics Ourselves Book Club
Saturday, June 9, 12-2pm

Do you read comics all the time and have insights you want to share and discuss with a group? Are you a critical thinker, and curious about the genre of comics? Join the Our Comics, Ourselves Comic Book Club! Each month we’ll select one or two comics or graphic novels to read, and then come together for an exploratory, critical, and spirited discussion at Interference Archive.

Visit our website for more info, and to check out what we're reading this month!

Film Screening: My Country Occupied
Wednesday, June 13, 7pm

Join us for a screening of My Country Occupied (Newsreel #151, 1971, 30 minutes), with filmmakers Tami Gold and Heather (Lewis) Archibald. In this moving film, the personal testimonies of Guatemalan Indians, peasants, and guerrillas are dramatized to provide the narration for a powerful overview of the history of U.S. destabilization of democracy in Central America.​ ​This screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. Visit our website for more information.

Agitate! Educate! Organize!
Agit Prop in the 21st Century
Exhibition Dates: June 12 -- September 30, 2018
Exhibition Opening: Tuesday, June 12, 6-9pm

Our daily lives are saturated with information; we consume supposedly “neutral” media that implicitly supports existing power structures, yet we simultaneously fear “fake news” without critically analyzing the truths and biases that coexist in every message we see or hear. The reality is that all media has an agenda: for hundreds of years, people have used art, culture, graphics, performance, and design as central elements of social and political organizing across all realms of the political spectrum, to spread information and reimagine reality. This exhibition reflects historic and current uses of agitprop, or agitational propaganda, at the intersection of design and political organizing.

“Propaganda,” from the same root as “propagate,” refers to information that is shared in support of a cause. In modern times, the word propaganda has been weighted with negative connotations; we aim to reclaim the word and highlight the radical potential of propaganda to instigate change. With the Arab Spring, Occupy, Gezi Park, Black Lives Matter, #NoDAPL, and now the resistance to Donald Trump, we’ve seen a new explosion of agitprop. People of all stripes have come out into the streets, placards and banners in hand, wearing T-shirts and buttons, passing out flyers and stickers to protest social injustice. This boost of political ephemera hasn’t been created in a vacuum—since the advent of the printing press and movable type, political slogans and graphics have been part of our daily existence. Politicized communication is the constant accompaniment to people organizing to improve the lives of their families, communities, and co-workers.

Because so much attention is focused on organizing and activism, now is the perfect time to unearth and unpack the history of agitprop. Where does it come from? Who have been its major practitioners? How have the aesthetics and content evolved over time? And, how can we use it to change the world?