The Readers
Performance, CD

Lori Gordon, Robin Lambert and Ashley Neese are collectively known as The Social Evolution Research Gang (SERG). Individually, each artist maintains a practice exploring numerous social aspects of art and life – conversation, intimacy, mix tapes, napping, lunch, daydreams, love letters and reading – each of which they hold in high regard. Oftentimes the moments which are inherently important in order for life to have a sense of completion and fulfillment are frequently the ones taken for granted and allowed to fall by the wayside. As a research gang, Gordon, Lambert and Neese are joining forces for the first time to examine the intimate act of reading and being read to by someone else, both in public and private. The members of SERG are nothing if not unconventional researchers, who are artistically examining daily life in contemporary society.

Reading a book is often an intimate, solo experience. Through The Readers the audience is being offered an opportunity to experience stories with a different form of intimacy, a different nature of intimacy. Being read to in a comfortable setting highlights the value of storytelling and sharing. It helps to define and bring attention to, if only briefly, the importance of the written word in our lives. Additionally, this experiential act may create a bond between these strangers – the readers and the audience. Through this connection the social engagement between artist and audience has the potential to exist and flourish.

In presenting The Readers, SERG will offer public readings from a selection of books pulled out of their ersonal libraries and archives. The locations for these performances will include one permanent venue, in the main branch of the public library, and a mobile venue operated from a cargo van. These readings will be performed as both open sessions and scheduled thematic sessions. The mobile venues will be situated outside of, or near, both art related locations such as ACAD, and other public locations such as Olympic Plaza in Calgary.