For those of you who are not based in Kingston and unable to visit the Etherington house, I have provided a set of resources below that may help to introduce you to the historic site, and begin to become attuned to its complexities, textures and intensities (though perhaps from a slightly oblique angle). Rather than give a zoomed-out overview of the home (such as an historical reading), the two first resources, The Blank Groove Video Edits and The Infra-Ordinary Journal, provide very much zoomed-in portraits of the home. This are gestures that are an initial attempt to literally “break down” the often overwhelming “colonial loudness” of the home into smaller blocks of observation, reflection, materials and affects. The Blank Groove and Infra-Ordinary resources available here were produced through daily visitations that I performed in the first two weeks of the ongoing exhibition A guest + a host = a ghost, which opened on February 8th, 2022 in Kingston as an empty house, and will continue to evolve over the course of the exhibition as more artworks and interventions are added to the space.
Further, the two “Sound Lectures” offered within this platform, which will be uploaded here on March 9th and April 13th, respectively, will be recordings and media that seek to collect, deliver and expand on some initial ways or ideas for thinking about “haunting” in relation the historic Etherington House, as well as start to sketch out how taking up performative methodologies of “haunting” can intersect with contemporary curatorial practices and produce alternative exhibition-making formats and behaviours.
Structure
Below is a set of activities that you are welcomed (and encouraged!) to join. As mentioned in the Introduction, these activities are designed to allow for participants to begin exploring together ideas around Paranormal Curation by navigating a range of contexts, materials, mediums and scales of publicness. It is possible that more (or modified) activities may be added to the platform as new haunted workflows are discovered / conjured over the course of the A guest + a host = a ghost exhibition, but my hope is that this initial set will at least serve to get some group practices in motion.
You will also note that there are two identical rounds that will be run for each activity set. This is a deliberate structure that allows for the program to “haunt itself,” as well as for it to “course correct” along the way, by building in a possibility to refine or remix the structures that are developed in the first round of activities. This ultimately means that, as a participant, you could also see yourself as co-designer of the Paranormal Curation learning platform, with your potential participation, contributions and ideas formed in Round #1 directly sculpting and influencing its dynamic for future guilds.
Local vs. Remote
If you aren’t based in Kingston but would still like to join in a Paranormal Curation activity, you can! We will endeavour to carry out each activity with both in-person and online possibilities for interaction and contribution. This could involve Zooming-in participants for synchronous activities, or otherwise designing alternative asynchronous roles for remote participants to influence our paranormal activities from afar.
Activity Pages
Click on each activity page below to learn more about each. Please feel free to email me anytime at [email protected] if you have questions, or to let me know that you would like to join the Curatorial Guilds that will be assembled around each activity.
Round #1 | March 11 - April 10, 2022
Micro Activity: Shadow Library #1 | March 11 - April 10 (4 weeks)
Meso Activity: House Band #1 | March 18 - April 10 (3 weeks)
Macro Activity: Phantom Market #1 | March 25 - April 10 (2 weeks)
Round #2 | April 8 - May 8, 2022
Micro Activity: Shadow Library #2 | April 8 - May 8 (4 weeks)