(Image is speaker's own created in homage to Tammy Rae Carland's Lesbian Beds (2002) series
Feel Tank: Burnout
Material: Creative Approaches to Research Conference
Bath Spa University
14th July 2018
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‘Feel Tanks’ (a spin of ‘think tank’) derive their name from one cell of a larger group known as the Public Feelings Project which operated from the conviction that ‘understanding affective investment can be the a starting point for theoretical insight into the workings of capitalism, racism and sexism within power structures.’ (Cvetkovich, 2012)
Through over a fifteen workshops, seminars and lectures in the UK and internationally, Chloe Turner has been using ‘Feel Tanks’ as both intellectual enquiry and call-to-arms, to consider how to sustain living under capitalism in the current moment.
In the continuing struggles against global anti-Black, queer/transphobic conservative governance, pandemic "new normal“ living and the stripping of arts and humanities funding, nurturing spaces of care and connection have never felt more pressing. How do we bring into being the feminist space we want to be a part of? A space where we gift our labour to each other as opposed to institutions, co-create the spaces to weather the coming disasters and mobilise a resistance that centres pleasure and joy.
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Feel Tank: Burnout
' i remember a friend saying "i dont want to be one of those dead superwomen" whose maybe remember for having done great work but is not actually there anymore to do anything with it...'
This workshop was part of the 'Material: Creative Approaches to Research' conference held by Bath Spa University, kindly funded by the Centre for Feminist Research, Goldsmiths College.