THE REJECTED. READING GROUP
We make a collage. We cut things out. We stick them down. We choose. There are always pieces left over—scattered, discarded, excluded, set aside. Pieces that have no place in what we are doing, in the main work.
Fragments of an image that might have been, but never was. TO CUT OUT IS TO REJECT. Even the idea itself can be dismissed. We peer in, we look, and there it is: what seemed to have no use, until a clearing opens up in the woods. Now we know what we can do with it. We want to see what was rejected come back to life! We discover that being rejected or ruled out does not mean being waste; these pieces have simply been waiting to take on new meaning: to make visible the invisible—the hidden work, the hours lived, the thoughts harboured, the traces of what was not seen.
We spend our lives making decisions, choosing a path. Along the way, we meet other travellers and weave a network as we wander and meander through shared experience. But what about the paths we leave behind? Aren’t we defined as much by what we choose as by what we reject? Can we allow ourselves to retrace our steps?
Now that we are looking back, let’s give ourselves another chance. Not just to dream, but to act, and to rethink what we have experienced from a different perspective. We know that choosing means giving something up, and we don’t want to.
We want the margins, the pieces waiting in the wings and our gatherings for discussion. We want to keep walking, but steer clear of straight lines, beginnings and endings. We choose, yes, but knowing that whatever we leave behind today can be reconsidered tomorrow. We come together, rejected or not. We grow stronger by being and growing together. We want to make a beautiful collage where once there were only discarded pieces.
A collage that is always unfinished.
Las Hijas de Yocasta
- The Reading Group is an independent research group initiated by the collective Las Hijas de Yocasta. It has become a regular fixture in the life of Museo CA2M. A place to stop, read, talk and collectively explore other ways of relating to ideas, texts, people and the institution itself.
- Every two weeks, the group comes together to share readings, raise questions, exchange experiences and think about ways of being, doing and building together.
- Participation is free and open to all. No previous knowledge is required—only curiosity, a willingness to share and a desire to be part of a community of learning and research.
PROGRAMME: 22 October / 12 November / 26 November / 10 December
Las Hijas de Yocasta
Who are we? We are Las Hijas de Yocasta
We call ourselves Las Hijas de Yocasta because we like the name, because we are all daughters, and because Jocasta was Oedipus’s mother (and his wife), who caused him so much grief (and pleasure). We found the perfect excuse for the name in Christiane Olivier’s book Jocasta’s Children and made it our own. It’s ours. Four daughters. We are the resistance of Museo CA2M’s reading groups. But we’ve become more than where we started: we have a voice of our own now. Brought together by our love of talking and talking, and of endlessly turning things over, looking at everything from every possible angle.