Non-Productive Readers
Reading group series
2022–Ongoing

‘Non-Productive Readers’ is a reading group series for discussions about art-writing, cultural theory and experimental criticism. Named after Josef Strau’s essay ‘the non-productive attitude’, the group loosely explores distinctions and hierarchies between talking and making, theory and practice, publication and exhibition.

I began running the series in Manchester in 2022 and continued in Berlin in Spring 2023. Previous texts have included works by artists, writers and theorists such as Lisa Robertson, Tan Lin, Josef Strau, Katrina Palmer, Vilém Flusser, Hito Steyerl, Tiqqun, Julien Bismuth, Jean Genet, Gertrude Stein, Jalal Toufic and Clarice Lispector.

In Novemember 2023, members of the group collaborated on a Reader, a performance at the Between Bridges residency space on Keithstraße, Berlin.