hi. - so i thought that in the dark it might be easier for us to imagine ourselves as the place where we meet. and that that place can’t be found. also, i just like talking in the dark. you can lie down if you want. you can close your eyes if you want. what i want to talk about tonight is collaboration. solitude and collaboration and the things that are never seen.
- it starts with i don’t know how to not collaborate. like i think of collaborator as part of my gender. but/and/also 3 years ago i started spending 2 hours a week alone in the studio. and halfway through that my grandma died, who was my last living grandparent. and the space that grief opened up became a kind of portal of trying to heal, even the tiniest bit, all the fucked up shit in my ancestral line - the shit that everyone and no one talks about - the shit that haunts us - the patriarchy and settler colonialism and white supremacy and violence and sexual violence and PTSD and war -
and i started collaborating with my grandma. and collaborating with ancestors. and collaborating with queer ancestors - who i had to find without finding - who i had to know without knowing. and collaborating with who showed up and shows up and keeps showing up. who are not blood ancestors. who i don’t think are human, and i’ll probably never know if they are, and i don’t need to actually know. who there are no words for, no name, no definable relation. just somehow invites us. somehow collaborates us. somehow exorcises us. somehow fountains us. and i wrote this for them.
and like i said at the beginning this about collaboration and the things that are never seen. so - this is not the thing. this is the other thing. this is the stain of the thing. and what i read to you, you can think of like that. -
like the greasy mark that’s left behind.
begin -
