Plans are still churning away for all of our Strange Fevers: Mass Delusions, Confusions, and Obsessions happening in April. Today, I sent acceptances to an amazing line-up of visual artists for the 1st Floor Exhibit (which will also include necessary violence, the Slenderman collaboration with my sister, in it' full glory, both texts and visuals, up on the wall.) This year, as I've mentioned before, we wanted to try, instead of individual events, to condense some of our programming into a single day with panels, readings, an expo and more...so thus was birthed what will hopefully be our spring big event--our Artists & Scholars Colloquium. My contribution to that afternoon is pulling together this very fun panel discussion:
"Adolescent girls are often the subject and impetus for strange and violent occurrences—everything from poltergeist activity to the Salem Witch Trials. This discussion delves into the power and agency of teen and pre-teens throughout popular culture and art, as well as how artists in multiple genres use this particular trope to explore new paths into our understandings of feminism, theory, and culture."
We're starting small, with only a couple panels and a reading, plus the developing Weird Science Fair we've wanted to try for a bit, which will be happening while the other stuff is going on. We're hoping eventually it can be a day long event. We have our monthlies & bimonthlies (How-To Tuesdays, Book to Art, Zine Nights), and our semesterlies (the Hustle Panels), but spring has lacked a larger event comparable to Indie Press, so this works out perfectly. We didn't issue a call for more formal academic papers and such, but we'd love to include that aspect in the future as we build on it.
