The Unforgettables Reading/Working Group is a discursive event series that gathers together readers/workers from various disciplines and walks of life to discuss feminist texts old and new. Initiated by artist Ofri Cnaani and curator Roxana Fabius in 2016, the series looks to imagine a future where no one is forgotten.
Each session is led by a member of the A.I.R. community who curates a syllabus of texts or other media on a topic of their choosing. Everyone is invited to study, converse, and learn together, collectively contributing to a growing library of feminist futures.
To receive updates on the group’s meetings, please contact us at info@airgallery.org.
Season VII (2025)
Season VII: Session 3
Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 6:30 PM at A.I.R. Gallery
On Threats to Order
Led by kimi malka hanauer
Readings and Materials:
Vicky Osterweil, “Introduction,” In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action, 2020, pp. 1–19.
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, “We have not forgotten French colonial crimes: a letter to Benjamin Stora,” The Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World, 2024, pp. 76–96.
Season VII: Session 2
Thursday, March 13, 2025 at 6:30 PM at A.I.R. Gallery
On Militourism & Sovereignty
Led by Aya Rodriguez-Izumi
Readings and Materials:
Teresia Teaiwa, “Reading Paul Gauguin’s Noa Noa with Epeli Hau‘ofa’s Kiss in the Nederends: Militourism, Feminism, and the ‘Polynesian’ Body," Uts Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 1999, pp. 53–69.
Haunani-Kay Trask , Introduction, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, 1999, pp. 1–21.
Season VII: Session 1
Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 6:30 PM at A.I.R. Gallery
On Constructing History
Led by Lizania Cruz
Readings and Materials:
Sylvia Wynter, “Novel and History, Plot and Plantation,” 1971.
Jacques Rancière, “Is History a Form of Fiction?,” The Politics of Aesthetics, 2004, pp. 35–41.
Robin Coste Lewis, “Voyage of the Sable Venus” (excerpt), Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems, 2015, pp. 64–65.
Season VI (2021)
Season VI: Session 1
Tuesday, October 26, 2021 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom
On Identity Politics
Led by Christian Camacho-Light and Roxana Fabius
Readings and Materials:
Season V (2020)
Season V: Session 2
Monday, November 23, 2020 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom
Special Session (Obituaries of the American Dream): As a woman, femme, or gender nonconforming person living in America, what have you sacrificed in order to thrive professionally?
Led by Lizania Cruz
Readings and Materials:
Audre Lorde, Poetry is not a luxury.
Jacqueline Battalora, Birth of the White Nation, Youtube lecture.
Kristen R. Ghodsee, Why Women Had Better Sex under Socialism. The New York Times, August 12, 2017.
Lisa Lerer, Elizabeth Warren Says Child Care Is Key to Bringing the Economy Back. The New York Times, August 6, 2020.
Season V: Session 1
Monday, October 26, 2020 at 6 PM Eastern Time on Zoom
Led by Bat-Ami Rivlin and Joan Snitzer
Readings and Materials:
Lambros Malafouris, At The Potters Wheel: An Argument for Material Agency (Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach, Knappett, Malafouris, 2008, pp. 19-36).
Isabelle Graw, The Value of Liveliness: Painting as an Index of Agency in the New Economy (Harvard lecture, Painting Beyond Itself, 2013).
Mignon Nixon, On The Couch (October, Vol. 113, 2005, pp. 39-76).
Gabriel Orozco, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Carrie Lambert-Beatty and Megan Sullivan, To Make an Inner Time: A Conversation with Gabriel Orozco (October, Vol. 130, 2009, pp. 177-196).
Season IV (2019-2020)
Season IV: Session 5
Monday, May 18, 2020 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom
Led by Kyna Patel
Readings and Materials:
Trio A (1978) by Yvonne Rainer.
“A D.I.Y. Dance for your Home, from Yvonne Rainer” by Brain Seibert.
The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt.
Part 2, chapter 7 (The Public Realm: The Common), pages 50-58.
Part 5, chapter 24 (The Disclosure of the Agent in Speech and Action), pages 175-181.
"Twist, Bend, Reach, Step: A Merce Cunningham Solo Anyone Can Try" by Marina Harss.
The dance is 50 Looks (1979) by Merce Cunningham.
Season IV: Session 4
Monday, April 27, 2020 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom
On the ways we are connected, our responsibility to one another, and the creative strategies we have at our disposal to meet difficult times
Led by Susan Stainman
Readings and Materials:
Rebecca Solnit, Chapters 1 and 4 of Hope in the Dark.
Ross Gay, Joy Is Such A Human Madness from "The Book of Delights."
A letter exchange between Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark
Season IV: Session 3
Monday, April 6, 2020 at 7 PM Eastern Time on Zoom
Led by Roxana Fabius and Renana Neuman
Readings and Materials:
Lara Glenum, Funereal Mineral Landscape
Donna Haraway, Chapter 3 of "Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
Meriem Bennani, 2 episodes of 2 Lizards
Season IV: Session 2
Tuesday, February 4, 2020 at 7 PM at A.I.R. Gallery
On feminist narratives of place in photography, film, and literature
Led by Maxine Henryson
Readings and Materials:
Jane Rendell, Feminist Architecture from A to Z
Jhumpa Lahiri In Other Words
Sarah M. Broom The Yellow House
Eudora Welty One time, One Place
Season IV: Session 1
Monday, October 28, 2019 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by H.A. Halpert
Readings and Materials:
Catherine Malabou, Ontology of the Accident, 2012
César Aria (translated by H.A.), Hepatitis Diary
Season III (2018-2019)
Season III: Session 5
Tuesday, July 9, 2019 at A.I.R. Gallery
On Darkness
Led by Christian Camacho-Light
Readings and Materials:
Sampada Aranke, Material Matters: Black Radical Aesthetics and the Limits of Visibility, 2017
Shaka McGlotten, Black Data, from “No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies,” 2016
SAVVY Contemporary exhibition essay Ecologies of Darkness: Building Grounds on Shifting Sands, 2019
Simone Browne, Torches, Torture, and Totau: Lantern Laws in New York City, from "Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness," 2015
Season III: Session 4
Monday, January 21, 2019 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Sarah Demeuse
Readings and Materials:
Ursula Le Guin, Life on the Frontier, 1996
Camilla Grudova, Unstitching, 2017
Clarice Lispector, The Smallest Woman in the World, 1964
Season III: Session 3
Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Diann Bauer
Readings and Materials:
Karen Barad, Troubling Time/s and Ecologies of Nothingness: Re-Turning, Re-Membering, and Facing the Incalculable, 2017
Laboria Cuboniks, Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation, 2015
Arrival, dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2016
Season III: Session 2
Monday, November 19, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Roxana Fabius and Patricia M. Hernandez
Readings and Materials:
Catherine D’Ignazio, Designing for Other (Than Straight, White, Rich Men), 2016
Catherine D’Ignazio, Feminist Data Visualization
Silvina Ocampo, The House Made of Sugar.
Season III: Session 1
Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Renana Neuman
Readings and Materials:
Avery Gordon, Some Thoughts on Haunting and Futurity, 2011
Audre Lorde, Between Ourselves, 1976
Season II (2017-2018)
Season II: Session 9
Monday, June 25, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Ofri Cnaani and Roxana Fabius
Readings and Materials:
Layli Longsoldier, 38, 2018
Christina Sharpe, The Weather, 2016
Lucy Lippard, Undermining: A Wild Ride Trough Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West, 2014
Season II: Session 8
Monday, May 21, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Ofri Cnaani and Roxana Fabius
Readings and Materials:
Denise Ferreira da Silva, On Difference Without Separability, 2016
Clarice Lispector, Report on the Thing
Season II: Session 7
Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Elizabeth Povinelli
Readings and Materials:
Elizabeth Povinelli, “Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism”, 2016
Season II: Session 6
Monday, March 19, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Carlos Motta and John Arthur Peetz
Readings and Materials:
Carlos Motta, John Arthur Peetz, Carlos Maria Romero, The Spit! Manifesto, 2017
Season II: Session 5
Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Aya Rodriguez-Izumi
Readings and Materials:
Octavia Butler, Bloodchild, 1995
Season II: Session 4
Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Jack Halberstam
Readings and Materials:
Jack Halberstam, Trans* A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability (Chapters 1, 2 and 6), 2017
Season II: Session 3
Monday, November 20, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
On 'Good Life' and Ugly Feelings
Led by Janna Dyke and Ofri Cnaani
Readings and Materials:
Lauren Berlant, Excerpts from Cruel Optimism, 2011
Sianne Ngai, Introduction on Ugly Feelings, 2015
Season II: Session 2
Monday, October 16, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
On Identity politics and normativity/antinormativity in queer theory and queer theory's impact on the field of theory more generally
Led by Elizabeth Larison
Readings and Materials:
Hilton Als, pages 11-51 of "Triste Tropiques" from White Girls, 2013
Robyn Weigman, lecture "Eve's Triangles: Or Queer Theory without Anti-Normativity" 2014
Rebekah Sheldon, Queer Universal, 2016
Season II: Session 1
Monday, September 18, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
On Agency and Perspectives on Cognition and Feminism and the implications of the body and mind dualism, trends in neuroscience, and alternatives in philosophies of science from a feminist perspective
Led by Park Myers
Readings and Materials:
Helena Knyazeva, Nonlinear Cobweb of Cognition, 2008
Antonia Majaca and Luciana Parisi, The Incomputable and Instrumental Possibility, 2016
Kate Shepherd, FWD: The Telephone Game, 2014
Season I (2016-2017)
Season I: Session 7
Monday, June 26, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Katherine Behar
Readings and Materials:
Katherine Behar, Introduction to Object Oriented Feminism, 2016
Anne Pollock, Queering Endocrine Disruption, 2016
Katherine Behar, Facing Necrophilia or 'Botox Ethics', 2016
Season I: Session 6
Monday, May 22, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
On Latinx Feminisms
Led by Christian Camacho-Light and Roxana Fabius
Readings and Materials:
Donna Kate Rushin, "The Bridge Poem" from This Bridge Called My Back (ed. by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa), 1981
Gloria Anzaldúa, "La conciencia de la mestiza" from Borderlands: La Frontera, 1987
Rita Segato, "Patriarchy from Margin to Center: Discipline, Territoriality, and Cruelty in the Apocalyptic Phase of Capital", 2016
Sofia Cordova, "La Vedette de América", 2012
Season I: Session 5
Monday, April 24, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Gabriela Vainsencher and Megan Pahmier
Readings and Materials:
Emily Dickinson: Article by her publisher (including poems and letter fragments), 1891
Virginia Woolf, An Excerpt from A Room of One’s Own,Chapter 3, 1929
Elena Ferrante (2 texts), Excerpts from letters to her editors, 2016
Alexandra Schwartz, "The Unmasking of Elena Ferrante", 2016
Adrian Piper, Art Criticism Essay Suggested Guidelines, 2016
Season I: Session 4
Monday, March 20, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Ofri Cnaani and Roxana Fabius
Readings and Materials:
Hannah Arendt, "A Classless Society" from The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Rebecca Solnit, "Short History of Silence" from The Mother of All Questions, 2017
Emma Goldman, "Victims of Morality", 1913
Season I : Session 3
Monday, February 20, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Roxana Fabius and Patricia Margarita Hernández
Readings and Materials:
Donna Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto", 1984
Rosi Braidotti, "Four Theses on Posthuman Feminism" from Anthropocene Feminism, 2016, edited by Richard Grusin
Joan D. Vinge, "Tin Soldier", 1974
Season I: Session 2
Monday, January 30, 2017 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Amber Esseiva
Readings and Materials:
Judith Butler, preface from Precarious Life, 2006
Zadie Smith, Speaking in Tongues, 2009
Michelle Cliff, If I Could Write This In Fire, 2008
Season I: Session 1
Monday, December 12, 2016 at A.I.R. Gallery
Led by Ofri Cnaani and Roxana Fabius
Readings and Materials:
Shulamith Firestone, The first chapter of The Dialectic of Sex, 1970
Karen Barad, excerpt from Posthumanist Performativity: Toward and Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter, 2003
Anne Boyer, excerpt from Garments Against Women, 2015
Ursula K. Leguin, She Unnames Them, 1985