Why Read Together?

On Companions, Co-conspirators, and Breathing WordsThis book is a companion for collective reading, especially collective reading that sits outside of institutional spaces. It has been crafted by Reading Rhythms Club. The pages within this book document a year-long experimental reading curriculum that explored the different social, political, and economic matters which affect our everyday lives. From the way protest chants travel across localities, to the language of gentrification, to the role of food in queer community building practices. This book includes playful reading methods such as performative storytelling, spatial reading choreographies, and critical neighbourhood walks, alongside a conversation on the urgency of collective reading. Reading Rhythms Club (RRC) is an experimental reading group that works with a range of collaborators to host communal learning sessions which embrace tangents and discussion. Within RRC, reading is approached in a playful manner, and collective learning is favoured over the idea of gaining 'mastery' of a text. RRC provides resources and spaces of exchange to collectively make sense of the world around us and understand how the often violent infrastructures we constantly navigate are shaped. Together, we ask what possibilities for refusal there are and how we can create alternatives together.