As a response to the various forms of distance imposed by Covid-19, Cell Project Space are commissioning artists to contribute to Queer Correspondence. This mail-art initiative begins in June with Alex Margo Arden and Caspar Heinemann, and continues with more contributions until December 2020.

‘If we are all sick, then a trust in καιρός – kairos, the unpredictable time – will help grow an emotional intellect that nourishes our social immunity.’ This is a beautifully succinct dispatch from the Greek artist on the importance of ‘aergía’, self-driven inactivity, for artistic production.

Here Benedict Seymour takes Fredric Jameson’s 2015 essay ‘In Hyperspace’ as a starting point to compare the current UK government’s Covid-19 and Brexit policies – a device to effect a collective leap into the future, only with the twist that this leap into the ‘future' is actually a radical leap into a reactionary past, a rapid leap backwards. 

James Baldwin’s work and life are the focus of this conversation between Bill V. Mullen and Megan Maxine Williams, two Baldwin scholars who discuss his radical work from today’s perspective, particularly in relation to feminism and sexuality. Mullen’s recent biography James Baldwin: Living in Fire (2019) is published by Pluto Press.

 

Curated by Mother Tongues, an interdisciplinary, research-led project that uses decolonial, feminist and queer theory to explore language and identity, this audio series combines music, sounds, poems and thoughts to create a therapeutic soundscape. ‘Strange Effect’ by Samara Jundi makes for easy listening this bank holiday weekend.

For the past 12 years THIS LONG CENTURY has invited artists, musicians, filmmakers and writers to contribute something of personal meaning to their online archive. This month TLC hits the 400th post and is marking the occasion by asking past contributors to each compile a playlist of 100 songs. The result includes everything from private press folk music to Palestinian underground hip-hop, with some playlists being over 14 hours long …