A READING GROUP FOR PEOPLE WHO PREFER MAKING PLAYLISTS.

Shared tracklists, reading and chips in the side room of a pub.

Hosted by Paige Ockendon and Emma Edmondson, with shared tracklists and chips in the side room of a pub.

We’ll be taking Jeremy Gilbert’s Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism as a starting point to think about collaboration and collectivism in an age of inidivudalism.

We'll translate this into exploring the ways that music can bring us into new relationships with each other.

Together we’ll confess our guilty pleasures (and shed the guilt!), make shared playlists, swap recommendations, build short-lived fan clubs and talk about the loves, hates, fears and memories of karaoke. You might come along with a song in mind, a hope to find some new music, or just because you have a spare Friday night to have some fun.

Optional karaoke to follow in the house bar, which welcomes spectators, pool players and singers of all sorts.

-

Emma and Paige are artists, organisers and huge karaoke fans, seeing the pastime as a space of love, mutual aid and most importantly fun. The Friday night house karaoke at The Plough inspired our own, evolving set of ‘karaoke care rules’.

The karaoke dance floor is a leveller where everyone is a star. But it can also be a place of vulnerability, especially if you have not karaoke’d before or you think you can’t sing. Here, there are no expectations to sing, no pressure to perform. Whether you’re a first-timer or a seasoned dark horse, you’re welcome.

Guilty pleasures become shared pleasures and the room is on your side.

Come along with curiosity, leave with some co-curated playlists, and possibly some time on the mic!

-

THE READING ROOM WITH THE OLD WATERWORKS X PLUTO PRESS X LEFT BOOK CLUB

The Reading Room (https://www.plutobooks.com/the-reading-room/) is a collaborative project where people can read, learn, listen, and share ideas.

Through linking up with other spaces across the country, Pluto Press (https://www.plutobooks.com/) and the Left Book Club (https://www.plutobooks.com/) have created libraries stocked with thought provoking books, where reading groups and opportunities to meet authors are being established, providing resources and activities that hope to catalyse creativity, collaboration and conversation.

The organisations involved share a common goal – to support and empower people within their communities. This project has been initiated in partnership with Pluto Press, and the Left Book Club, and over time, each local hub will develop to reflect and serve the community within which it sits, making each space responsive and unique.

As well as physical library spaces, The Reading Room will open up forums to debate local issues that affect everyday lives. Taking the lead from our communities, these topics may include inequality, the environment, precarious employment, LGBTQ+ issues, structural racism and much more.

TOMA x TOW are continuing our collaboration through this project which will include access to books, workshops and reading groups. We both work collaboratively and alongside other cultural organisations in the area, bringing contemporary art and culture to the wider community.

You can access the collaborative TOMA x TOW Reading Room at The Old Waterworks’ library HERE (https://www.theoldwaterworks.com/tow-library). The space is currently open every Tuesday from 12-6pm to come and visit.

Description supplied by the event organiser.