Riff Raff Reading Room
Series
ARE YOU A WRITER OR READER INTERESTED IN BUILDING RIFF RAFF READING ROOM TOGETHER?
Riff Raff Reading Room is a series of COVID-cautious reading, writing and riffing sessions at TheySwarm, TextaQueen’s shopfront studio, artist residency and event space in Collingwood, Narrm.
TheySwarm library shares books by First Nations, Black and people of colour authors, making space for reflection, learning and community building whilst centring marginalised creatives.
Here’s where you come in. As an artist interested in community-building amongst like-minded creatives, TextaQueen would like to invite interested COVID-cautious writers and readers to come and help facilitate the space as part of a revolving collective, with opportunities to provide your own input from your lived and professional experience. Since lockdowns were officially phased out in late 2021, many of us have experienced isolation as arts spaces have generally become less interested in maintaining COVID-cautious measures.
Riff Raff Reading Room is currently in the process of being created, and will open in early 2026.
The intentions for Riff Raff are currently:
- To build a COVID-cautious space with low expectations for being outwardly social
- To cater to various sensory needs
- To foster connections between COVID-cautious creatives
- To create a non-institutional library that helps with unlearning dominant structures
- To support COVID-cautious creatives to realise their artistic potentials
- To empower COVID-cautious creatives to begin or continue a lapsed practice as a result of isolation
- To maintain long-term relationships with other COVID-cautious creatives with the view towards sustainability for the space
If this sounds like something you want to be a part of creating, please contact TextaQueen at textaqueen[at]proton.me with more information about yourself and how you personally envision the space to look like. While Riff Raff is open to all who are COVID-cautious, BIPOC marginalised creatives are especially encouraged. Facilitators will be renumerated for their labour, with options for support assistance and travel subsidies if needed.