Karaoke Club - Dark Academia
Karaoke Club - Dark Academia
In collaboration with Pluto Press and The Other MA (TOMA), The Old Waterworks (TOW) is hosting a series of reading groups aimed at artists and creatives who want to support their practice with up to date ideas about the world around us and how they influence our work.
Karaoke Club starts with Pluto publication; Dark Academia; How Universities Die by Peter Fleming
Saturday 7 February 7.30pm - 10.30pm
Join Emma Edmondson and Paige Ockendon for Karaoke club. An alternative reading group with a cathartic way to think about and process the world around us. Paige and Emma are huge karaoke fans, seeing the pastime as a space of love, mutual aid and most importantly fun. The karaoke dance floor is a leveller where everyone is a star. But it can also be a place of vulnerability, especially if you have not karaoke’d before or you think you can’t sing.
Sing anyway, sing your way through the pain as universities around us become more expensive, exclude normal folks and close down for good. Paige and Emma invite you to an evening of solidarity, asking themselves, and the audience, how can karaoke help us through these tough times? Is what makes a good karaoke host the same as what makes a good lecturer? Are we just signing and dancing at the end of the world?
With a cocktail and a mocktail designed by Fern Worsley as an ode to Dark Academia, we hope you'll join us to sing or spectate, but to sit in solidarity with educators and learners as the businessification of education rages on.
Whilst we have ramp access to our building we regret that we do not offer fully disabled accessible toilets due to limitations with our building and lease.
We charge a minimal fee as we have found people book spaces but don't attend. Please email if you need a free place and they are all taken. Book tickets here.
About the book
There is a strong link between the neoliberalisation of higher education over the last 20 years and the psychological hell now endured by its staff and students. While academia was once thought of as the best job in the world – one that fosters autonomy, craft, intrinsic job satisfaction and vocational zeal – you would be hard-pressed to find a lecturer who believes that now.
Peter Fleming delves into this new metrics-obsessed, overly hierarchical world to bring out the hidden underbelly of what he terms the ‘zombie university’. He examines commercialisation, mental illness and self-harm, the rise of managerialism, students as consumers and evaluators, and the competitive individualism which casts a dark sheen of alienation over departments.
Arguing that time has almost run out to reverse this decline, this book shows how academics and students need to act now if they are to begin to fix this broken system.
Copies of the book will be available to browse and purchase.
Discussion of the content of this book may cause difficult and differing opinions to arise. Please be respectful of other attendees as we navigate possibly contentious topics.
Code of Conduct
Please be aware that TOW operates a code of conduct that we require all attendees to respect. If you feel you are not able to adhere to this code of conduct we respectfully request you opt out of attending:
● Be kind and welcoming to others. Harassment and sexist, ableist and racist, transphobic or other prejudicial comments or behaviours are not welcome;
● Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences;
● Respect personal space and ask before entering it;
● Be mindful of language that may exclude or alienate. Please do not disparage others.
We may ask you to leave if you fail to adhere to this code of conduct, with any agreement you have with TOW being terminated with immediate effect.
Further Information
Emma Edmondson is an artist and organiser from Southend-on-Sea. Studying and graduating during the 2008 financial crash alternative economies, precarity and utopian community are at the centre of her research and practice. She works with sculpture, print, text and education and is interested in how recessions and austerity shape how we survive creatively. In 2016 she set up TOMA an accessible artist-run education model which is currently the only postgrad-ish level art programme in Essex after all others were stopped by their host universities. TOMA sits outside the traditional institutional model and was born of and been shaped by austerity and the decades long businessification and dismantling of creative education. These are the politics that bought TOMA into existence. Recently she has been processing raw clay dug from the ground and exploring local land rights to create sculptures that sit on the ground they were made from, marking out little know public rights of way to encourage local people’s use of them. She always works collaboratively believing in collaboration over competition and the power of people coming together to change sector policy, systems and rules.
Paige Ockendon is a producer and a sorter of stuff. She works with artists, groups and organisations to help turn ideas into projects that bring people together. She offers project management, programming, artist mentoring, relationship building, fundraising and event production and she sees admin as a creative and collaborative practice which is rooted in care. Paige uses admin to shape and protect the space where ideas can unfold.
Fern Worsley is an artist and arts facilitator, passionate about community arts. Director of the blockhouse studio in Southend. Fern works across painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video, and performance. Collaboration and audience participation is an important element to her work, providing more opportunities for dialogue.
The Old Waterworks is an artist-led charity in Southend-on-Sea that provides studios, facilities, and research and development opportunities for artists as well as quality arts events and experiences for our surrounding community. TOW addresses the need for spaces for artists, a venue for cultural activities and workshops to take place, and a site for research and development.
The Other MA is an 18-month artist-run learning programme based in Southend-on-Sea supporting artists who have faced barriers accessing art education and the ‘art world’. TOMA was set up in 2016 to offer affordable, accessible and responsive art education to artists and we are the only postgraduate level art programme in Essex after all others were stopped by their host universities.
The Reading Room is a new collaborative project where people can read, learn, listen, and share ideas. Through linking up with other spaces across the country, Pluto Press and the Left Book Club have created libraries stocked with thought provoking books, where reading groups and opportunities to meet authors are being established, providing resources and activities that hope to catalyse creativity, collaboration and conversation.
