The Kathy Acker Reading Group offers a social and intellectual space for deeper engagement with Acker’s novels. Led by writers, artists and academics directly and indirectly influenced by Kathy Acker’s work, the reading group follows the collective explorations of Acker’s texts undertaken by ICA staff in the course of planning I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Kathy Acker.

Each meeting involves close readings of Acker’s work through the intersecting lenses of identity, sexual desire, mythology, and the language of the body. These themes relate to salient ideas located in the eight text fragments around which the exhibition is structured.

The second reading group, led by writer and poet D. Mortimer, examines texts including The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula and I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining through the lens of co-dependency, considering the loss and construction of the self through another.

Those attending the reading group are asked to read the following texts by Acker in advance:

Attendees are also invited to listen to the song ‘Kim’ by Eminem, which will be analysed alongside I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining. (As the lyrics of ‘Kim’ contain explicit content, this listening exercise is not mandatory.)