Sylvia Wynter, A Hybrid Course
Multiple Sites
About the Project
LAND in partnership with Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA) present a free hybrid course on Jamaican philosopher, dramatist, and novelist Sylvia Wynter. Join us for four weeks of social study and one day of screening facilitated by manuel arturo abreu.
Wynter's multidisciplinary project reimagines cognition, western science, and development. She investigates and proposes alternative ‘genres’ of homo sapiens which Enlightenment rationalism tried to erase. Resisting the “mechanization of the world” to material causes, Wynter instead builds on Fanon’s notion of sociogeny: on this analysis, immaterial, social, and spiritual causes underlie the materialist colonial project, as well as resistance to it. Wynter catalyzes a post-disciplinary Black Study and performative myth-making to rewrite the Caribbean as central to modernity and its eventual sunset
Sylvia Wynter, a course facilitated by manuel arturo abreu. Featuring a film screening, reading group, and writing workshop. Enrollment Period: January 3rd - 20th
In lieu of the class reaching full capacity we are making the class's syllabus and readings available to download. Click here to download the Sylvia Wynter Syllabus.
Class Dates
- January 20th on Zoom
- January 27th on Zoom
- February 3rd in-person at LACA
- February 5th Film Screening of Wynter's film-adapted play The Big Pride (1961) hosted at Human Resources-Los Angeles
- February 10th in-person at LACA
About the Artist
manuel arturo abreu (b. 1991, Santo Domingo) is a non-disciplinary artist on unceded lands of Multnomah, Cowlitz, Clackamas, Confedered Grand Ronde, and Confederated Siletz peoples. abreu works with what is at hand in a process of magical thinking with attention to ritual aspects of aesthetics. Since 2015, they have co-facilitated home school, a free pop-up art school in the Pacific Northwest with a multimedia genre-nonconforming edutainment curriculum. Recent projects at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark (Graz), Kunstraum Niederösterreich (Vienna), Veronica (Seattle), and Athens Biennial 7 (Athens).
About LACA
Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA) is an art archive, library, and exhibition platform that collects underexposed artistic modes of expression happening in our current moment. Challenging established concepts of the archive and art space, LACA sustains a unique experimental environment for critical inquiry, artistic research, and public dialogue. The collection at LACA is artist–run, meaning that living artists are donating, deciding what is valuable and generating language for inventorying their work on their own terms. LACA is not affiliated with a larger institution and as such, it maintains an archive free from limitations associated with prevailing, traditional structures.
Credits & Support
Special thanks to Blue for making the film screening possible.
LAND’s 2022 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation and the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Abby Pucker, the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, Jay and Deanie Stein Foundation Trust, the Poncher Family Foundation, Brenda Potter, and LAND’s Nomadic Council.
Image: Sylvia Wynter, from Human_3.0 Reading List. Cauleen Smith, 2015. Graphite and brush and green ink on wove graph paper, 300 × 215 mm. Image courtesy the artist and the Art Institute of Chicago.