hello@streetroad.org
610 869 4712

725 Street Road Cochranville, PA 19330 
Clouded Title 2020/21  conversations:
an online reading and discussion group.
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These sessions are held on Zoom and a related online discussion space is hosted on Slack.
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​Email us to join.
Clouded Title continues its problematizing of the notion of ownership through interviews with people across disciplinary fields, as well as through an ongoing discussion and reading group which is open to anyone to join.

This research aims to tease out how different notions of ‘ownership’ are conceptualised and narrated, including how storied histories of ownership are performed within current understandings of who belongs to a community and how this bears on who is visible within the construction of public and political spaces.

​The aim is to scope out various discussions of the spatial/material 'ownerships' (land/air/water/people/non-human beings etc.) and (il)legal frameworks that instantiate such ownerships (appropriation of land, use of human and animal bodies) as 'property.'
Clouded Title Conversations 

In recognition of our community’s deep input to Street Road over our 10 years of practice, we are pleased to invite you to take part in these discussions, which draw on our past projects and on our community's perspectives to continue our ongoing investigations of ownership.

We foreground the aesthetics and metaphoric qualities of land ownership, taking in things like the real estate industry, mapmaking, and local histories, following Street Road's focus on visual culture and practice-led art, and the ways those intersect with our social and political landscapes.

DETAILS
  • We are meeting 6 times this year over Zoom, the third Saturday every other month.
  • Participants have access to an ongoing Slack site for discussion and sharing readings, resources, etc.
  • Four of the session themes draw on ongoing or current projects and themes at Street Road - we will choose later themes together as they emerge from our discussions.
  • There are suggested readings for each meeting - not obligatory. We try to provide a short reading with supplemental longer reads. It’s envisaged that the Slack meeting place will include many resources and will be a place for you to share others.
  • You are welcome to join the Slack channel without participating in the Zoom sessions, and vice versa.
Email us, with a short description of your interest, to participate and/or simply join us on Zoom (link at left).
ZOOM SESSIONS

Session 1 - Ownership and aesthetics
February 20, 2021, 2-3:30pm Eastern
Suggested reading: ‘Our violent commons’, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay in Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism,Verso 2019


Session 2 - Land, ecologies, and climate change
​April 17, 2021, 2-3:30pm Eastern
In connection with the exhibition, Castor, by Matthew Shackelford
Suggested reading: Elizabeth Kolbert's Under a white sky: the nature of the future
Suggested listening: Should We Dim the Sun? Will We Even Have a Choice?’ (Feb 9th, 2021), a 1-hr. podcast interview by Ezra Klein speaking with Kolbert (a New Yorker environmental journalist) on her new book, and the debates around ‘dimming the sun’, CRISPR gene technology, and the possibility that alien life has visited our solar system. 
Secondary reading: the reading list for Castor, compiled by M. Shackelford, focused on environmental urgencies in our area, Chester County, Pennsylvania.


June 19, 2021, 2-3:30pm Eastern
Session 3 - Borders and mappings
Guest speaker Kaori Homma will talk about her project Homma Meridian, an ongoing installation at Street Road and elsewhere, in connection to Street Road's forthcoming publication about the project.

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83829934121

Suggested reading:

August 21, 2021, 2-3:30pm Eastern
Session 4 - The Christiana Resistance
In connection with Walking Forward, Looking Back by artist Carol Maurer, Street Road 2018.
Suggested reading to be announced.

October 16, 2021, 2-3:30pm Eastern
Session 5 - focus to be decided by the group
Reading(s) to be decided.

December 18, 2021, 2-3.30pm Eastern
Session 6 - focus to be decided by the group
Reading(s) to be decided.

    Join our email list:
Visiting:
Autumn 2021: please check our website or social media before visiting as our hours are subject to change. Masks are required and we are observing limited numbers of people inside at one time. Please call 610-869-4712 or email to set up visits outside our regularly scheduled hours. 
We are currently seeking volunteers: email us if you are interested in volunteering for a few hours. 
 
HOURS
Street Road: Friday, Saturday and Sundays 11-3 pm and by appointment for the duration of Summer Library. Check back after November 13 for our winter hours. The library box outside is open 24/7. 
Little Free Library: Thursdays 12-3pm and Saturdays 10am-2pm and by appointment. 
Our Little Free Library's outdoor box is open 24/7 and regularly restocked.

DIRECTIONS
to Street Road here. 
to The Little Free Library here.

A word about 'here':
We acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands of the Lenape, original people of the mid-Atlantic area, forced west by British and US governments. Most Delaware Indian tribe descendants are now located in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario. Lenni Lenapes in Pennsylvania are not officially recognized as tribes by the United States, though an estimated 5000 Lenape Nation descendants live in the Delaware River area. We pay respects to the Lenape people both past and present. Please consider the many legacies of violence, displacement and settlement that form part of our collective histories. While increased public recognition of these legacies and processes of redress such as Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission are positive steps, concrete focus on return of land and land rights remains a distant horizon.
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