Thinking through the often exhausting forms of communication during lockdown, I returned to Hamja Ahsan’s publication Shy Radicals: Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert. Here, Ahsan reads the ‘six point reparation programme to provide justice for shy, quiet and autistic spectrum people’. Through the illustration of the laws and values of Aspergistan – the utopian state for introverts – the hegemonic structures and supremacy of neurotypical and extrovert behaviour emerge and provide an entry point in analysing this oppressive systematic ideology. This footage is from a table read at ArtEZ studium generale in 2019.

Today I want to remember Lucia Bosé, an Italian actress known for her major role in neorealist films of the 1950s, and before that for being Visconti’s muse. Bosé became an iconic reference for many filmmakers including Fellini, Antonioni and Buñuel. Over the years, the trajectories of both her life and career became inherently rooted in her untamed freedom. As she often said, ‘I have dedicated 50% of my life to cinema, the other 50 to my independence’. Bosé recently passed away from Covid-19, at the age of 89. I invite you to celebrate her talent and impressive career with some of her most remarkable works:

I am grateful to artist and DJ Ain Bailey for recommending two restorative tracks from this great musician: ‘Don’t Despair’, one of Ain’s ‘favourite BGC tracks, so emotional and ethereal’, and In The Image, performed this past weekend by Glenn-Copeland as part of a ‘magical’ online live set. Ain presented the ICA live commission Congregation last year, part of her ongoing research into how people use sound to create a sense of place. These tracks follow on from an exchange we’ve had about cathartic music and writing.

Sharjah Art Foundation has extended the deadline for applications to its Sharjah Film Platform until 10 May. In 2019, I sat on the experimental jury of the first edition and it’s definitely worth taking this opportunity to apply. Here’s a recording of a panel discussion on ethnographic entanglements from that edition with Minia Biabiany, Basir Mahmood and Laura Huertas Millan.

Practitioners whose work explores the lived experiences of disability, particularly for people who are also non-binary, trans and/or of colour, might be interested in this call for proposals to present their work as part of this virtual symposium organised by King’s College London Disability + Intersectionality reading group, in collaboration with the SOAS Crip Feminist reading group. The submission deadline is 30 April and the symposium will take place over two Saturdays, 6 and 13 June.

Between 1978 – 79, Foucault gave a lecture series under the title of The Birth of Biopolitics at Collège de France, which combined and evolved his historical analysis of biopolitics with those of 20th Century neoliberal notion of Gesellschaftspolitik (policy of society) – in (very) short: the relationship between biological phenomena and political behaviour.

Kim Gordon: Sketch Artist (2019)

Video Shot by Loretta Fahrenholz