Slow Social Club X Exquisite Pressure featuring Sarah K. Finn

• explore a novel creation process reflecting ‘eco-centric’ values or concepts
• initiate a process or relationship that could have a life beyond the show

Together, we’ll take a walk from What Lab to the nearby Feral Archive, where we’ll engage in decompositional writing inspired by our sensory encounters. Loose themes of decomposition and scale will guide a soft discussion.

Please bring walking shoes, a notebook and something to write with.

Accessibility:

It’s a 20 minute walk from What Lab to the Feral Archive, located near Victoria Park on Charles and Victoria. It’ll be an uphill walk there and an optional downhill walk back to What Lab. At the archive, visitors can explore the materials there, sitting or standing, as they prefer.

Please note that the archive is literally feral - with many of the pages/booklets in varied states of decay (including mold). Visitors will be provided with masks/gloves to engage with materials, and garage doors will be open to ensure airflow. As an alternative, participants can stay outside in the garden if they prefer (weather-permitting).You can read more about the archive and see photos here.

For folks unable to do the walk or experience the archive directly, there is an option to stay at What Lab, where there will be a few samples from the Feral Archive to explore, a printed version of the writing activity planned for the archive, and a member of the TOA team to support. This is also the plan if the weather is not in our favor.

Please see What Lab: Visual Story Guide for detailed info about parking, washrooms, wheelchair access to the space, and more.

We welcome your questions and access requests. Please email us at [email protected].

Readings:

We'll start at What Lab with readings of short excerpts from the following writing:

• Hildyard, Daisy. The Second Body. Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2024.

• Todd, Zoe. “Fish, Kin and Hope: Tending to water violations in amiskwaciwâskahikan and treaty six territory.” Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, vol. 43, Mar. 2017, pp. 102–107, https://doi.org/10.1086/692559.

• Check out the Feral Archive.

Please e-mail us if you would like to receive text in advance.

Regular meet-ups to share methods for slow, process-led artmaking. Each edition responds to local themes, materials and collaborators and becomes a co-creation with our communities. We offer soft tactics to remember and repair our relationships to place. See past editions here.

Your companion through the climate crisis. Slow art & community on unceded Coast Salish lands.

The Only Animal (TOA) brings art and artists to the heart of the climate crisis. We foreground social connection and slow creation to offer a form of environmental activism that takes place in the folds of our everyday lives.

Our 'slow social' events reflect our understanding that transformation is an ongoing process, not a single experience, product, or show.

Our current projects explore how place-based creativity can set the stage for climate care and sensitize relationships between people and place. We prioritize long-term and porous relationships with the public and our artist collaborators, shifting what we do in response to local curiosities and needs.

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