NON-PRODUCTIVE READERS is a reading group for informal discussions about art, cultural theory and experimental writing. Initiated by BRYONY DAWSON in 2022 and named after Josef Strau's essay The Non-Productive Attitude, the group loosely explores modes of passivity, ambivalence, failure and refusal as vital aspects of creative and institutional practice. Past readings have included texts by Lisa Robertson, Jean Genet, Tiqqun, Clarice Lispector, Katrina Palmer, Jalal Toufic, Gertrude Stein and Seth Price.

The reading group takes place in the pauses between exhibitions. The selected texts will respond to the experiences and insights of the previous exhibition and thematically introduce the following project.

Discussions will be mainly in English, with whisper translation and German text versions available. No prior knowledge or background in art or cultural theory is required—only a motivation to read and think with others.

Each session is dedicated to a different text, so there is no pressure to commit to the whole series. Lurking listeners are always welcome.

To receive the reading material, please register at: readinggroup@halle-fuer-kunst.de

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In the 3rd session on 20/11/2025, we read:
Lisa Robertson, Nilling (excerpt), 2012

Described as a collection of prose essays about noise, pornography, melancholy, folds, cities and related aporias, Lisa Roberton’s Nilling is ultimately a study of the act of reading. In "Lastingness," she describes the heady experience of reading Hannah Arendt, Pauline Réage and Lucretius almost simultaneously—resulting in a rich exploration of reading as a site of conflicting desires and displaced identities.


The annual programme at Halle für Kunst Lüneburg e.V. is funded by the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony, Lüneburgischer Landschaftsverband, and Hansestadt Lüneburg.

BRYONY DAWSON is a writer, curator, and sometimes-artist based between Berlin and Vienna. She runs the reading group Non-Productive Readers, as well as the reading series Tribute and screening/performance series Multiplex. Her creative and critical writing has been featured in Frieze, émergent magazine, Motor Dance Journal, Common Pink, Corridor8, Sore, and on Montez Press Radio. She is currently undertaking a Masters in Critical Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

LISA ROBERTSON is a poet, writer, and translator currently living in France. She is author of the novel The Baudelaire Fractal (Coach House Books, Toronto, 2020), and books of essays including Nilling (Book*hug, Toronto, 2012), Proverbs of a She-Dandy (Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2019), and the recent Anemones: A Simone Weil Project (If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam, 2021). In 2005, Robertson was awarded the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English, and in 2017, she won the inaugural C.D. Wright Award for Poetry.