Part of the Spittoon Arts Collective archive. International chapters beyond China and Gothenburg.
Beyond China and Sweden
Spittoon’s international reach extended beyond Gothenburg. By January 2021, confirmed chapters were running in the United States — part of the same coordinated network that connected Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Xi’an, Shenzhen, Dali, and Gothenburg in simultaneous programming.
Tucson, USA
Spittoon Tucson was confirmed active by January 2021, participating in the Tale of 6 Cities programming series. One of the more remarkable facts about Spittoon’s growth: a literary collective that started in a hutong bar in Beijing had, within six years, established a functioning chapter in the American Southwest.
Lisbon, Portugal
Spittoon Lisbon brought the collective to the Portuguese capital, adding a European chapter to a network that had already demonstrated the model worked across languages and cultures.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Spittoon Addis Ababa extended the network onto a fourth continent — a literary collective rooted in East Africa’s largest city, and one of the most geographically distant chapters from where it all started in Beijing.
Riga, Latvia
Spittoon Riga added a Baltic chapter to the European network, alongside Gothenburg and Lisbon.
A Network, Not a Brand
What connected Beijing to Gothenburg to Tucson to Lisbon to Addis Ababa to Riga was not a franchise model or a set of rules. It was a shared instinct — that bringing people together to read and listen in a room is worth doing, anywhere, in any language, under any conditions. Each chapter ran itself. Each found its own voice. The thing they had in common was the name, the Thursday, and the founding idea.
Read the Archive
Articles documenting Spittoon’s international programming — republished from the original WeChat archive.
matthew-byrne.com 