For the 2021 4S Conference, we have curated some special social events to participate in! These events were curated in the spirit of this year’s conference theme of Good Relations – Practices and Methods in Unequal and Uncertain Worlds and were also designed to draw attention to and consider the significance of the conference’s geographic situation in the Toronto/Tkaranto region of Canada.
Learn more about Indigenous histories and practices in Canada in one the remote guided walking tours organized by First Story or take a moment to connect with others at the conference and reflect on your sleep and rest practices through the virtual care lab’s Collective Rest-Nap-Dream Portal. If you happen to be in the Toronto area at the time of the conference, join us for our in-person, open air Technoscience Party, where you can mingle and listen to tunes by local DJs. All events are free but space is limited. Feel free to email meeting@4sonline.org if you have any questions.
As one of the major highlights of the 4S 2021 Conference, we invite conference participants to join us for a Virtual Walking Treaty-Focused Tour of the Fort York area. This tour will be led by Jon Johnson and other guides from the First Story Toronto community. First Story Toronto is an Indigenous community-based organization that researches and shares Toronto’s Indigenous presence through popular education initiatives such as storytelling walks throughout the city and an online application.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/first-story-virtual-walking-tour-the-high-park-tour-tickets-175134280347
Take a virtual walk with us through High Park and uncover the lesser-known stories behind some of the park’s prominent landmarks. Deepen your appreciation of Toronto’s complex history and explore stories of power and privilege, oppression and resistance. Learn about the history of the park’s beautiful cherry trees, stories of how Grenadier Pond got its name, and why Hawk Hill is much more than an ideal spot for bird watching.
Join us for a guided event dedicated to practice rest, sleep and dream as relational activities, in contrast to contemporary assumptions that these are internal and atomized experiences. Practitioners from virtual care lab will offer a reflective and refreshing space to connect in the midst of the 4S Conference; to experience rest as a social activity, practice vulnerability, and synthesize new ideas, knowledges, and ‘good relations’ shared during the conference at large.
Visit virtualcarelab.com/rest at any moment throughout the conference to explore an interactive online portal with participatory prompts, materials and resources. We invite you to join our live session on October 8 at 1-3pm EDT to engage in guided care for our digital-physical senses, voice dreams in a collective format, nap or listen to others, and surface reflective sketches or messages together.
The 4S Good Relations in Unequal and Uncertain Worlds: IRL Technoscience Party will be our only in-person event in Toronto’s 4S conference. Join us for an open air evening of music and mingling in the heart of the Junction at Rainhard Brewery. Special music acts by Sarovar, Nomad Nala and Sofia Fly.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/know-up-glow-up-a-peer-reviewed-beauty-tutorial-tickets-181765063197
What theory framework best flatters my eyes? Can we blush our way to ethical research design? The choice is yours (and everyone else’s) in this Zoomed inversion of the academic and beauty tutorial. Through the power of Zoom polls and your synchronous revisions, Christine H. Tran and Nelanthi Hewa (University of Toronto) invite you to fashion the new face of peer-review in this virtual performance with 4S. All you need to do? Show up, put on your Review #2 (or Reviewer #100) hat, and answer some beautifying questions in the polls.
This two-(f)actor authentication play stars one Creator (Tran) and one Platform (Hewa) as they (inter)face each other about the nature of creation, collaboration, and contour in the screened over scholarship spaces of COVID-19. Between them: Zoom polls, a double-blindfold, a make-up kit, and an audience (yourselves) whose own autonomy to determine Creator’s face is locked into the whims of Platform.
Tran and Hewa invite the votes, vetting, and vitality of all practitioners–both within and outside academia. Viewers are welcome to simply spectate, but they are strongly encouraged to submit their ballots in real time to strive for a new, prettier mode of authorship in the platformed web.
4S2021 is soon upon us! What better way to experience a virtual conference dedicated to Good Relations in Unequal and Uncertain Worlds than to host a watch party. Join Toronto, Canada and London, UK in creating local watch parties so that you too can experience the conference together with people in your city.
A watch party is more than watching. It’s a time to connect with others through sense reactions. It can be a flint to spark conversations. It can be ways of getting to know new people and ways of getting to know people in a new way.
Other ideas for watch parties:
Learn more from setting up a watch party from our online toolkit! https://www.4sonline.org/meeting/good-relations-watch-party-toolkit/