The Kitchen Table Collective: Public Day of Workshops and Talks
The Kitchen Table Collective (KTC) is an online network, founded by Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki, whose members include leading scholars, artists, activists, and independent practitioners from around the world. Since 2023, the group has met virtually eight times a year to discuss members’ work, developments in the field of oral history, and how we are collectively navigating the politics of our institutions, communities, and everyday lives. We are pleased to now open up this generative space to COHDS community members, by inviting you to attend the collective’s first in-person meeting: “Listening in the Age of Polycrisis.” This symposium asks how oral historians ought to adapt to the shifting realities and crises of our current moment to not just strengthen the field, but think through what our work may offer our troubled world.
Please join us for a full day of talks and workshops at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling on Friday, June 12, all of which will focus on what it means to listen right now.
Public Day of Workshops and Talks, including the Oral History Book Launch (Limited spaces), 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
You can consult the full program here.
Workshop: Push Play, A Participatory Workshop on Oral History and Play (Limited spaces)
16h00 – 17h30
Push Play is an experiential workshop that invites participants to rethink assumptions about speech, narrative, and memory embedded in oral history practice. Through play-based, theatrical, and sensory exercises, the workshop asks: What is the most open invitation we can offer someone to share their experience of being in the world? And what conditions make that kind of sharing possible? Participants will engage in embodied memory work, sensory exploration, improvisation, and collective scene-making to explore how the body listens, remembers, and communicates—including beyond or before spoken language. Rather than privileging stories or linear narration, Push Play emphasizes presence, process, and relational attention. Designed for oral historians, educators, and artists, this workshop is a shared space for experimenting with and thinking together about how to create more inclusive and expansive approaches to memory work. Participants will collectively reflect on how these practices might inform their interviews, classrooms, archives, and community-based projects.
Co-sponsored by the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling and Concordia University’s Department of History
REGISTRATION
Register now with this link for Public Day of Workshops and Talks, including the Oral History Book Launch (Limited spaces) and with this link for Workshop: Push Play, A Participatory Workshop on Oral History and Play (Limited spaces)
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person at LB-1019 (Sunroom), LB-1042 (Media Lab) in the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), and LB-1014 (Department of History Seminar Room), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.
