Callie's

As winter approaches, we invite mothers* and their kin to join us for the next edition of Brood Reading Group. We will gather at Callie’s on Wednesday, December 11th at 10am to discuss Ursula Le Guin’s essay “The Space Crone.”

“The Space Crone”
In this 1976 essay on aging, Le Guin argues that the perfect human to send to a distant planet is not a man—and definitely not a young, highly educated man—but rather, an apparently ordinary post-menopausal woman: the crone. For only a crone has “experienced, accepted, and acted the entire human condition—the essential quality of which is Change.”

Participants are encouraged to read the book in advance and are invited to attend with their children. Capacity is limited and registration is required; please use the link in bio to register.

*Please note, we use “mother” as a term that is not limited to biology or gender but exists in a space of possibility and pluralism.

Based in New York City, writer Akil Kumarasamy is interested in the tension that emerges when the mystic and divine brush against the everyday. Immersive, lucid, and compassionate, her writing frequently centers those forced into the margins, eking out the truth of their stories through slightly surreal reflections of reality. Like life, her writing rarely follows linear chronology. Instead, it is layered, polyvocal, and rich with stories within stories.

Akil joined us at Callie’s as the sun returned to the city. In the Writer’s Room, she worked on her new novel, which explores the migration of trees, the female body, and communication with the more than human world.

Akil is the author of “Meet Us by the Roaring Sea” (FSG, 2022) and “Half Gods” (FSG, 2018), both New York Times Editors’ Choice picks. She is a recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize and the Story Prize Award. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s and The Atlantic, among others. Akil is currently an assistant professor in the Rutgers University-Newark MFA program and a 2024-25 Radcliffe fellow at Harvard University.

Hanne Lippard is a Berlin-based artist who works with the production and perception of language through sound. Collating immersive sound-based installations and performances that employ rhythmic repetition, shifting intonation, and the permutation of words and sentences, Hanne’s practice explores the social and political dimensions of semantics. Her work reveals the fragility, flexibility, and fallibility of language as a tool for conveying meaning.

During her residency at Callie’s, Hanne has been in the sound studio preparing for her exhibition for the Preis der Nationalgalerie, which opens at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin on June 7th. Inspired by the Rosetta Stone, her newest project features a styrofoam stele and an eight-channel sound piece.

Hanne’s work has been exhibited and performed in various institutions including FRAC Lorraine, Metz; MHKA, Antwerp; Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen; Palais de la Découverte, Paris; Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster; Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway; as well as n.b.k., Hamburger Bahnhof, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and CCA in Berlin. Hanne was awarded the Preis der Nationalgalerie in 2024.

Callie’s is pleased to open applications for an immediate residency in our movement studio from June through August for dancers, choreographers, and artists working with movement. We are accepting applications until Friday, June 7th, at 17:00 CET. More info on our webpage, linked in bio ✨