“It’s a most human thing to not be able to imagine [death],” says artist, writer and LTTR journal and collective co-founder Every Ocean Hughes, discussing end of life care. Talking with AQNB editor Steph Kretowicz on queer death, illness and community for AQNB’s special Reversal Agents podcast for Rewire festival, this discussion first broadcast via the festival on May 7 is now available to stream.
Hughes’ deeply interdisciplinary and collaborative practice often circles language, representation and legibility, with a rich lineage of queer art that crosses her early days in the 2000s New York city punk scene, and more recent working relationships with the likes Geo Wyeth and Colin Self.
Following this discussion with Hughes is a reading from Clay AD—a Glasgow-based artist working across writing, sound, video and movement—from their novel Metabolize, If Able. We first spoke with Clay last year, for an interview on AQNB, and have been drawn to their use of sci-fi and speculative fiction to explore themes of illness, ecology and biopolitics today.
On Illness is the second in our Reversal Agents podcast for Rewire, which examines notions of the past and the future, human agency and healing, in music, art and culture right now. Further episodes feature Jack Halberstam, Evan Ifekoya, Zach Blas, Most Dismal Swamp.The four-episode special edition series is an extension of our ongoing Artist Statement podcast, available bi-monthly via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/aqnb.**
AQNB’s Reversal Agents podcast was broadcast for Rewire festival on May 6 to 9, 2021.
