{"id":3616,"date":"2026-05-03T21:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T21:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/?page_id=3616"},"modified":"2026-05-04T00:57:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T00:57:53","slug":"impossibleprojects27","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/","title":{"rendered":"Building the Possible: From Local Wins to Structural Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>6<sup>th<\/sup> Symposium of the Impossible Projects Working Group\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>March 19-21, 2027, University of Toronto Mississauga<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Impossible Projects was formed in 2016 out of a desire for interdisciplinary discussions about the ethical and political challenges of working on issues related to violence, inequality and social justice. The name \u201cImpossible Projects\u201d recognizes that any efforts to redress marginalization or injustice through academic, artistic, and activist work may inevitably be limited and incomplete. And yet these projects are undertaken nonetheless, suggesting something \u201cpossible\u201d at the heart of the impossible.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The March 2027 symposium of the Impossible Projects Working Group focuses on local wins for systemic change. We ask: how do we recursively make change within our imperfect structures and continued crises? Moreover, we want to consider how best to critique our institutions without giving up from frustration and demoralization. As recourse, we turn to encouraging and sharing how local successes can re\/build relationships and (perhaps) institutions. At the same time, we remember that collapse can reshape social relations and material contexts for the better. To these points, we invite discussions of relationship-building for structural change across institutions, especially in moments of breakdown. People take care of people. How might we care for one another and scale up relationships for structural change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We hope to explore the following themes, among others:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Breaking down problems to their smallest bits \u2013 connecting small wins to fractals, molecules<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Scaling up local care relationships for structural change (in pedagogy, institutions, community work, and beyond)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reckoning with the ghosts and doppelgangers of institutional pasts and building relationships that heal those hauntings in and beyond the classroom&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Strategizing through\u2013and disrupting\u2013repeating patterns across spaces, and reducing damage from toxic patterns<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Resisting institutional corporatization in favour of care<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Working toward decolonization and justice without being co-opted by colonial institutions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We encourage people to contribute as creatively or traditionally as they like. We welcome submissions using diverse formats: papers, art workshops, facilitated discussions, contemplative and pedagogical walks, direct action strategy sessions, writing workshops, multimodal storytelling, community-based and experiential learning opportunities, and more! We hope to host wide-ranging explorations of creative experimentation as a strategy for building the possible. Our intention is to create space both for critical reflection and for collaborative creative interventions.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contributions can include, but are not limited to: presenting a project you\u2019re working on and how it engages with some of the above questions and themes; sharing pedagogical practices and challenges; reflecting on the roles of institutions in social and resistance movements; and offering self-reflexive contemplations that connect personal, political, and professional lives. We strongly encourage participants to engage with the conference as fully as possible, recognizing that for some this engagement may be necessarily limited by time, distance, and capacity, so feel free to define your participation as you wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>6th Symposium of the Impossible Projects Working Group\u00a0\u00a0 March 19-21, 2027, University of Toronto Mississauga Impossible Projects was formed in 2016 out of a desire for interdisciplinary discussions about the ethical and political challenges of working on issues related to violence, inequality and social justice. The name \u201cImpossible Projects\u201d recognizes that any efforts to redress &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Building the Possible: From Local Wins to Structural Change&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3616","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3616"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3633,"href":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3616\/revisions\/3633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/impossibleprojects.clarkson.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}