RESEARCH PROJECTS & CULTURAL PROGRAMMES

Research Projects & Cultural Programmes

CBP’s research projects and cultural programmes bring together Black study, aesthetic practice, cultural memory, public humanities, and community relation. Some projects are recurring programmes, some are research streams, some are collaborations or redirects to partner sites, and some are seasonal or in development. Each page should clearly name the project’s status, frequency, lead, and ways to participate.

The Black Field

The Black Field cultivates Black study, aesthetic practice, and creative professional development on the move. Through site visits, curatorial walkthroughs, studio and archive visits, exhibitions, dance floors, study sessions, and conversations, it gathers artists, curators, researchers, students, and cultural workers around Black cultural infrastructure and experiment.

COMING SOON!

FLOW: Freedom Library for Otherwise Worldmaking

FLOW is CBP’s community-based abolitionist library and study initiative. It supports book drives, community letters, literacy access, book sorting, collection development, and reading practices shaped by Black feminist, abolitionist, diasporic, queer, trans, disabled, migrant, and multilingual traditions.

IN REVIEW FOR FALL

Writing in Common

Writing in Common is a recurring writing and study space for people working across Black Studies, poetics, archives, cultural work, and experimental scholarship. Sessions may include co-writing, quiet work blocks, check-ins, occasional prompts, and space to move work forward alongside others.

[magnitude + bond]: a slow, multimedia Reading Group

[magnitude + bond] is a student-led reading group and study formation for shared engagement with Black Studies, relational theory, aesthetics, and political thought. It supports slower reading, discussion, and collective intellectual practice.

Night Visions

Night Visions is a recurring film, media, and conversation series focused on global Black film, experimental media, sound, and moving-image practice. Screenings create space for collective viewing, discussion, and informal study.

Kin//Making Workshops

Kin//Making Workshops are hands-on workshops connecting artistic practice, relation, making, and cultural memory through collaborative study. Each cycle should name its theme, facilitator, audience, access notes, and whether participation is open, invited, or limited.

No Body But Ours

No Body But Ours is a SSHRC-supported research-creation initiative centring disabled 2S+/QTIBIPOC aesthetics, care, and communal relations. Public copy should emphasise the virtual showcase, care packages, access commitments, and the project’s attention to sick and sovereign modes of gathering.

STILL HERE

STILL HERE is a Black trans research-creation and community care initiative centred on rest, correspondence, study, and abolitionist cultural practice. Present it as emerging / 2026-27, with dates and access details forthcoming unless confirmed.

Calling the Conjurers Quadrennial

Calling the Conjurers is the CBP’s major symposium formation for technologies of Black life and study. For launch, preserve the history of the 2024 gathering and note that the next cycle is tentatively planned for 2027, pending scope, funding, and programme confirmation.

Octavia Butler Lecture Series

The Octavia Butler Lecture Series is an annual lecture platform connecting Black Studies, information studies, speculative thought, archives, technology, and worldmaking. This series is produced by Prof. SA Smythe as the Academic Lead for the Faculty of Information, supported by Octavia E. Butler’s estate, and featuring a keynote speaker, and related reading sessions and coordinated events occurring in tandem with the year’s theme within the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis.

Interested in collaborating with us?

Our multidisciplinary hub for black study and black aesthetic practice welcomes proposals for programs, gatherings, or projects by and for Afro-diasporic, Black Indigenous, African researchers, students, communities, independent culture workers and all our relations.

We welcome proposals for a wide range of events, including but not limited to:

Questions?