Eyelevel Solidarity Bookclub
on pause - stay tuned for the re-launch of book club
What are you reading these days?
At Eyelevel we believe in the inextricable connection between visual art and the written word - as artists writing inspires us, educates us, interprets us, and enriches us. We write about our own work as well as the work of our peers and we read to inform not only our practices but our everyday lives.
In solidarity with the many visual artists, writers, thinkers and community organizers who are putting themselves on the frontlines each day, we celebrate the writing of BIPOC, QPOC, Disabled, neurodiverse, and 2SLGBTQIA+ authors - making space to learn from their words and to discuss their lived experiences in community with one another.
The Eyelevel Solidarity Book Club is a program open to all folks, meeting every two weeks to discuss a new socially-engaged book or piece of writing in the context of current events, ongoing activist movements and our own art-making and community relationships. Membership is non-committal, and we’ll grow and build our reading list together.
OUR FIRST BOOK IS INVISIBLE MAN, GOT THE WHOLE WORLD WATCHING: A YOUNG BLACK MAN’S EDUCATION BY MYCHAL DENZEL SMITH
First Meeting: June 29th, 6PM on Zoom
How to Join:
Purchase a copy of the book (Eyelevel has purchased 3 copies to offer on a PWYC basis to folks who face financial barriers with all funds going to support BLM Toronto)
Email director@eyelevel.art to be included on all future Solidarity Book Club communications
READ UP!
Join us for a meeting - held over Zoom until it’s safe to gather in-person
About our first book:
How do you learn to be a black man in America? For young black men today, it means coming of age during the presidency of Barack Obama. It means witnessing the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, and too many more. It means celebrating powerful moments of black self-determination for LeBron James, Dave Chappelle, and Frank Ocean.
In Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, Mychal Denzel Smith chronicles his own personal and political education during these tumultuous years, describing his efforts to come into his own in a world that denied his humanity. Smith unapologetically upends reigning assumptions about black masculinity, rewriting the script for black manhood so that depression and anxiety aren't considered taboo, and feminism and LGBTQ rights become part of the fight. The questions Smith asks in this book are urgent—for him, for the martyrs and the tokens, and for the Trayvons that could have been and are still waiting.
