A new project (2025), the Institute for Men (IM) is an ever-shifting collective and container for art-based research. The IM is for anyone marked by manhood (i.e. everyone). Facilitated by Andrea Sisson (artist & clinical social worker) and Eliza Lu Doyle (artist & educator) since winter 2025, the Institute has gathered regularly under the premise of rehearsal-without-end.
We are not concerned with fixing manhood so much as finding new ways to make contact with it. In curiosity we ask, what is the contemporary man? What does manhood mean to us as a social collective and as individuals? What is the future of manhood in a uptopian society? Let us not leave men behind (including our inner men). Shifting indiscriminately between discourses like psychoanalysis, posthumanism, somatics, group relations, and the queer utopoian agenda, we rehearse together. We enter the space multiple, bringing along our inner men, our outer fathers, and any other Men that may emerge.
Through creative inquiry and an ethos of play, we research to produce new knowledge. Together, we move through structured discussions, writing prompts, and movement scores, hoping to culminate with performances, workshops/classes, and a collaborative text/reader/artbook with contributions from all participants, edited by Sisson and Doyle.
