BREAK TIME
(pause, gap, interlude, closed world)
NEW CIRCADIA
Nathaniel Kleitman and Bruce Richardson in Mammoth Cave Sleep Experiment, 1938
“…In spite of its insubstantiality and abstraction as a slogan, the implacability of a 24/7 is its impossible temporality. It is always a reprimand and a deprecation of the weakness and inadequacy of human time, with its blurred, meandering textures. It effaces the relevance or value of any respite or variability. Its heralding of the convenience of perpetual access conceals its cancellation of the periodicity that shaped the life of most cultures for several millennia: the diurnal pulse of waking and sleeping and the longer alternations between days of work and a day of worship or rest…”
24/7, Late Capitalism and The Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary, 2014
"...If you tell me hippies and yippies are going to be able to do the job of helping America, I'll tell you this: They can't run a bus; they can't serve in a government office; they can't run a lathe in a factory. All they can do is lay down in the park and sleep or kick policemen..."
Spiro Agnew, September 2, 1968.
Lunch breaks, coffee breaks, weekends, and vacations or, alternatively, prayer, meditation, recreation, and leisure are cyclical pauses in the routinization of work. Each refers to a notion of retreat to some degree. In this regard, Kleitman’s choice of Mammoth Cave to conduct his experiment in circadian rhythm is perhaps less notable for the opportunities that a highly touristed site offered, than what the underground offered - a total break from above-ground routine. New Circadia welcomes all who are “on break” to visit.
EVENTS
Still from Horror Vacui
Film Screening, March 20
Horror Vacui, 2018
Rapid-fire aerial images and a driving soundtrack fuel this video critique of mankind's alienation from nature.
Director: Matteo Zamagni, , 3h 21min.
Sleep Dealer, 2008
A sci-fi film set in a dystopian near-future where Mexican labourers use advanced technology to remotely inhabit the bodies of robots in American factories.
Director: Alex Rivera, 90min.
New Circadia Wellness Programming
The wellness programming expands on themes and questions posed by the New Circadia exhibit, by inviting students and the public to enjoy mindfulness as a part of their weekly routine. This series is presented in partnership with U of T Health and Wellness.
Mindfulness is a practice of being aware of yourself, your body and your surroundings in the present moment. Rooted in Buddhism as a spiritual practice, it is also used in clinical psychology to help treat patients with chronic anxiety and stress. By learning to incorporate principles of mindfulness in your life through meditation and yoga, or in your diet through mindful eating, you can improve how you manage academic stress.
Weekly programming includes a series of mindful Yoga sessions that allow participants to boost energy and improve mood and sleep. No experience is required to participate in Mindful Movements. All sessions are all levels welcome. Practice is informed by the science of movement.
About Mindful Movements Yoga Instructors:
Nene Brode is certified as an instructor of yoga, Canfitpro Group fitness, Barre Above, Schwinn Cycle and bootcamps.
Kelly Sullivan, BFA (she/her), is a Masters of Education: Curriculum and Pedagogy candidate with a double emphasis in Wellbeing and the Arts. She is a certified yoga instructor, with a particular interest in the benefits of Restorative Yoga and Mindfulness Meditation to counter our culture of busy-ness, particularly within academia. She also has an extensive background in dance which led her to the practice of yoga as a therapeutic movement alternative. A series Mindfulness Meditation sessions that allow participants to enhance focus and reduce stress.
About Mindful Moments facilitators:
Professor Ravi Thiruchselvam teaches psychology at both the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. He completed his Ph.D. in affective neuroscience at Stanford University, with a focus on emotion regulation and mental health, and has become dedicated to teaching mindfulness meditation in academic settings.
Professor Kevin Chiao is an arts educator and mindfulness facilitator. He holds an Honours Bachelor's degree in Professional Writing and is currently pursuing a Master of Education in Counselling Psychology and Psychotherapy at OISE. As a facilitator, Kevin has led mindfulness-based bereavement groups, mindfulness arts groups and spiritual growth meditation groups. Kevin enjoys working with people from all backgrounds and using mindfulness and meditation to promote self-compassion, cultivate resilience and inspire people to live life with an open heart.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) demonstrations April 19-23, 1971 in Washington, D.C.
Lecture, Thursday, March 5
Activist Encampments and the Fight for Public Sleep
with Franny Nudelman
“...For activists, who agitate for altered modes of thinking and living, sleep is a practical necessity. In order to congregate and resist, demonstrators must often sleep outside for days and sometimes weeks at a stretch, and high-profile demonstrations past and present have been shadowed by legal contest over public sleep. A case in point: in the spring of 1971, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) fought the courst for the right to sleep on the National Mall as part of their weeklong demonstration, Dewey Canyon III.
When the courts denied their petition, veterans decided to break the law by sleeping anyway. turning good rest into a form of dissent, hundreds of veterans fell asleep, wondering whether or not they would be arrested by daybreak. Their case demonstrates the importance of public sleep to movement history: from the occupation of Occupy Wall Street, protest camps have brought people together to resist oppression and reimagine communal life; as such, they are sites of disruption and struggle - targeted by state authorities and protected, in often and ingenious ways, by activists who defend the right to sleep….”