In the AYA Rest Space, taking place in the context of the annual AAAS Conference, we aim to open a conversation on the spatial politics of university structures. The university is a fractured space: Fred Moten and Stefano Harney in The Undercommons problematize the difficulties of navigating the divide of the university, which is, on the one hand, “a place of refuge” (26), yet, on the other, it is also the source of imperialist epistemologies and the increasing neoliberalization of knowledge production. How can we retain a place of refuge while acknowledging its violent structures? How do we address the burdens that universities place on bodies and minds through spatial rigidity? What potentials for rupture and refusal emerge in spaces of rest? Can they act as a refuge in an architecture geared towards productivity?

Creating a space for rest at the university, as a key site of knowledge transfer, and in the context of a conference, a nexus of intellectual exchange and networking, might seem counterintuitive at first. However, critical thinking requires not only productivity and performance, but equally needs moments of rest, silence, and breaks. There are few places at university that allow students to take these breaks (alone or in community); at conferences, an often tightly packed program leaves barely any moments of silence to process received input. The AYA Rest Space therefore seeks to stir reflections on the necessary rupture – if not rupture altogether – of the pervasive demands of continuous productive flow in university contexts.

Our Rest Space figures as a site for participants at the conference to seek repose and stillness, while remaining aware of the political dimensions and unequal distributions of rest. In the context of the conference, this space is intended to highlight debates that deal with relaxation, recreation, and sleep from a cultural and political perspective. We are inspired by activists, writers, and artists who have long argued that rest is both personal and political, echoing Audre Lorde’s famous words: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare” (131). Such critical interventions include Black Power Naps, a project by Navild Acosta and Fannie Sosa, and The Nap Ministry, an organization by Tricia Hersey, which create rest and napping opportunities in often unconventional spaces to break with productivity-driven capitalist infrastructures. They make rest and sleep a vital and collective demand, not equally accessible to everyone, yet essential for health, joy, and resilience. The AYA Rest Space builds on these debates to invite critical thinking on the unequal distribution of rest and sleep, and to trouble the university’s highly productive and networking-driven demands. In this sense, the Rest Space invites a way of being and thinking together that echoes Moten and Harney, who argue that study “is what you do with other people. It’s talking and walking around with other people, working, dancing, suffering, some irreducible convergence of all three, held under the name of speculative practice” (110).

As a critical space of rest, participants are invited to visit this room at any time during the conference whenever they seek a break from panels, a moment to process received input in silence, or indeed dare to engage in what Hersey calls “the liberating power of naps.” The room will be designed for bodily comfort and intellectual stimulation. Participants may actively or passively indulge in the political dimensions of rest by consulting selected books in the provided “rest library” or by simply absorbing quotes that decorate the walls and windows. In addition, a kick-off talk and input on “Dormiveglia: On Sleep, Softness, and Structural Breaks” by the curator Francesca Romana Audretsch on Saturday morning will shed light on critical concepts of “rest” and their politicization and initiates a discussion on the power and thought structures of the university. It is our hope that this space will draw attention to learning as an embodied practice, and wellbeing as a political concern.

SOURCES: 
Hersey, Tricia. The Nap Ministry. About. https://thenapministry.wordpress.com/about/.
Lorde, Audre. A Burst of Light: Essays. Firebrand Books, 1988. 
Moten, Fred, and Stefano Harney. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Minor Compositions, 2013.