About LLCLS

Link-Link Club Lecture Series (LLCLS) invites people to talk for ~20 minutes about something, anything, in which they are interested (and that is not their core field of expertise). Being a lecturer does not mean that one has a history of lecturing or talking in front of people. Being a lecturer simply means being invited to become a 'link' in a culture LLCLS is actively cultivating - one that is interested in who people are beyond their job.

Designed to subvert the tradition of experts-as-lecturers, the series provides a framework for anyone to speak about an interest, hobby, or obsession in a low-stakes, high-reward setting. The 20-minute format fits in people's busy schedules, making participation accessible whether as lecturer or audience member. Each session includes lectures followed by a pizza party, creating space for participants to expand their relationships with friends, neighbors, and colleagues while meeting new people that other lecturers invited that same evening. Most importantly, deep connections are made based on who people really are, which is the foundation of true relationship, support, and understanding. Lecturers invite new lecturers for subsequent sessions, expanding the community in an ever-widening group of sharers, obsessors, and amateur wunderkinds.

In 2024, Link-Link Club receives recognition as a recipient of the One More Hour grant by Hinge, The Foundation of Social Connection, and DoSomething Strategic for its work fostering meaningful, in-person interactions to combat loneliness and build stronger communities. The project is also featured in Assemble, Trippin.World's phone book of initiatives dedicated to getting people up, out, and connecting IRL. The project demonstrates how gathering in real life to listen to people share their passions creates authentic connections that extend far beyond a single evening.

With over 100 lectures in the books on topics all over the map, and unforeseen connections upon connections made, Link-Link proves that listening to people share their chosen topic for 20 min is a worthwhile way to spend one's time.

History

Link-Link Club Lecture Series (LLCLS) began in 2014 when artist Sarah Conarro moved from Alaska to New York. Eager to make true connections in her new hometown, Sarah developed a community-driven project that circumvents the often-stuffy 'artist talk' and ever-present 'small talk.' She wanted a new kind of 'talk'- one that would bring people together while supporting critical and creative inquiry that everyone experiences on a daily level. Sarah and Julian Bozeman kicked off LLCLS with two rules: lecturers must talk about a topic outside their field of expertise, and they must invite friends to join as audience members. To decentralize themselves, past lecturers also invite future lecturers. The project is headquartered at Dreamers Welcome in Brooklyn, a live/work space they run together.


  • Sarah is an interdisciplinary artist working across painting, collage, installation, and socially engaged practice, re-considering collage as a tool for social engagement. Through these forms, she explores how culture can nurture vulnerability, authentic connection, and collective memory. She asks: How can art spark meaningful conversation during times of political fracture? How might strangers, for a moment, become a community? Her work provides a setting for participants to find common ground through conversational exchange, creating systems that balance structure and freedom.

    @sarahconarro + sarahconarro.substack.com


  • Julian is a songwriter, performer, video artist, and sculptor whose socially engaged practice explores the fallibility of time perception and its influence on human experience. He creates spaces, sounds, and images that ask audiences to reconsider how memory, presence, and visions of the future shape their emotions, relationships, and sense of self. His practice seeks to create moments that feel less like intellectual arguments and more like invitations to feel, to reconsider, and to reconnect—with oneself, with others, and with the strange beauty of being alive.

    @julianbozeman + julian music