THE TORONTO MEN’S BOXING CLUB

Principles for Work

1. Everything is practice. All practice has a witness. So all practice is shows. Or there are no shows and only practice.
2. You take your own breaks. Or, our bodies tell us when to take a break.
3. You pay yourself. When we have money, the budget is transparent. The distribution of money reflects our values.
4. We greet each other when we arrive and leave.
5. Everyone can bring a witness. Everyone can be a witness. Witnesses can want to participate. The audience is a participant who may or may not witness in the way we intend.
6. You can find your own replacement. There is the opportunity to commit and the opportunity to leave.
7. I speak from my own experience. I work with my own body.
8. It has a location. People know where it happens. Sometimes people are the location.
9. Bring your magic to work. Do not leave your magic at home.
10. Work from the principles you use in your foundational art practice.
11. There is a process for feedback. We work from the witness backward.
12. The art is the process. The process is the art.
13. The appearance of things is dangerous.
14. Thinking we have to do something a certain way is dangerous.
15. We do not have to speak in a way that people already understand. We do want to find understanding.
16. If there is equipment there is a technician. We need workers with open job descriptions, not workers with two job descriptions. We are richly set up.
17. We give credit for other people’s ideas and methods. We know we are interconnected.
18. There is consent.
19. Find a way that is easeful.
20. Resistance is valuable.
21. We are agents of each other’s transformation.
22. Instead of signing a CAEA contract, we ratify principles contained in the Green New Deal, e.g. collectivity, decolonization, anti-austerity, narrative, organization.
23. There is a daily physical practice.
24. There is a text.
25. We’ll see how it works.

Jill Connell
September 10, 2019

<< BACK TO RESEARCH INDEX