PLAY-STUDY with Selah
[past ten events]
Play-Study is a collective space that orients around creative works that inspire postactivist community and practices. In 2026, guided by our theme of playful inquiry, we engaged with Selah: A Báyò Akómoláfé Reader using a practice of bibliomancy to meander through the text over the course of three months. We held the intention of exploring play — and more specifically humour — in the texts we read, especially focusing on practices, footnotes, references, and inspirations.
Play is the portal through which we study ourselves and the worlds we inhabit, that inhabit us. To Play-Study, one must remain open to different forms of play as relational facilitators that show us the edges of our intimacy, revealing both our limitations and our capacity for more. To Play-Study, one must remain open to the imperfect, the asymmetrical, the fragments, the inexplicable. To Play-Study is to suspend disbelief long enough for entertainment to become a new martial art, a new form of resistance.
Together with a group of 100 co-sojourners, the ten Core Team hosted a series of six emergent live sessions and had the opportunity to meet with the author to practice together at the half-way point. We developed a library of resources to help guide us on the journey, including the Play-Study Guidebook and a rich repository of practices collected in the Postactivist Playbook.
ten’s Play-Study framework was primarily adopted from the ImaginationDoulas Book Collective.
Artwork from Selah by Krista Dragomer: kristadragomer.com.
Many thanks to the folks at Ayin Press for their partnership and support with the promotion of this offering.