I work as a writer, researcher, editor and musician based in Amsterdam.
Currently I’m a postgraduate at Sandberg Institute; editor of Perdu’s poetry podcast ‘De Verloren Tijd’ and ‘Time Lost’; editor and co-founder of SNAKY ZINE; and I make music as Romy Day.
Romance Utopia is a research project that has gotten out of hand; spilled over into a digital archive, a radioshow, a videowork and a collection of essays.
SNAKY ZINE is a self-published political zine on socialist feminism, racism, ableism, sexuality, spirituality and community building. I run this publication together with Joy Brandsma.
For sale at Stedelijk Amsterdam, San Serriffe, Het Fort van Sjakoo, Circe’s Circus Nimboscope and via our channels.
On Sunday October 24 I will celebrate the launch of my book Romance Utopia at San Serriffe.
Between 14:00 – 16:00 a limited amount of people can participate in an adapted version of my love token workshop (rsvp via info@san-serriffe.com). Between 16:00 – 18:00 there will be a walk-in with drinks & books.
The publication is designed by Tjobo Kho and contains two of my essays, an interview with Geraldine Snell, four visual works by Becket MWN, Dagmar Bosma, Monica Mays and Mafalda Costa, and a writing prompt based on my love token workshop.
After the launch the book will be available at San Serriffe, Athenaeum Spui, Claire de Rouen books London, rile*space Brussels, and Good Press Glasgow, as well as (international) shipping (more on this later).
Art critic Jorne Vriens has written a short piece about my ongoing research project ‘Romance Utopia’ in the graduation special 2021 of contemporary art magazine Metropolis M.
As part of the Sandberg Critical Studies end of year presentations at De Appel, I read a new text called “and this to me — desire has alloted”, on incoherency in romantic narrative, Anne Carson’s Sappho translations and negativity.
For Outline Platform I assembled 35+ Wikipedia articles and wrote a short essay called “An aesthetic of (im)patience: hoarding, collection, memory” which has been made into this lovely ¶#2 publication titled “Bundle Theory”
As a result of Amelia Groom’s writing workshop at Sandberg Institute, the Critical Studies department worked on a publication called LIKE, which can be ordered now.
It includes a work of mine titled “A baroque longing” in which I consider one of Emma Crabtree‘s works as a ruin.
Order here or pick one up at San Serriffe.
The ‘Love Spells & Rituals For Another World’ publication came out of of a symposium that took place in May 2020 under the same title. All proceeds are split between African Rainbow Family, akt and Mermaids UK.
Edited by Lilly Markaki and Caroline Harris
Designed by Toni Brell
With contributions by:
Denise Ackerl, Marcus Bell, Toni Brell, Keti Chukhrov, Genevieve Costello, AC Davidson, Mijke van der Drift, Phoebe Eccles, Aimilia Efthimiou, Antke Engel, Andrea González Garrán, Caroline Harris, Christian Klesse, Si Leong, Lilly Marks, Cynthia Montier, Lisa Moravec, Ophélie Naessens, Nat Raha, Andrea Ray, Charlotte Rohde, Lou Lou Sainsbury, S. Santos, Despoina Tzanou, Alexandra Voutsina, Nadira Clare Wallace, Romy Day Winkel
As part of Read My World festival this year, Emma van Meyeren and Uitgeverij Chaos have organized a workshop series on feminist journal writing. I have kicked off the series with my love token workshop titled “On romantic gesture and its restricted objects”.
In the next couple of weeks the series will continue with workshops by Tessel Veneboer, Leana Boven, Grâce Ndjako, Fiep van Bodegom and Mia You.
More information on these workshops can be found here.
In this third edition of SNAKY zine we present the utopian uses of MAGICK via a wide variety of contributions. We printed spells for love and kinship, call up grandma’s magic, situate ourselves in rooms of the imagination…
… embrace our continuous shapeshifting, fight for the power of indigenous lands, remember the legacy of Ana Mendieta, present a tarot spread for writers, do some digital dreaming of magical creatures, emphasise that which is sacred, return to the nine herbs charm, learn about the magical heritage of Monte Veritá, remember that grandma’s bag has everything in it to dismantle capitalism, weave our hair into our surroundings, understand modern economics as a storytelling practice, embrace a recaptured spirit, experience spiritual ecstasy, ask ourselves how much belief comes from longing, let the moon play the flute, receive a list of sounds, learn how to use love runes, re-mystify romantic objects and create a queer space through magick.
Contributions by Pykel van Latum, Nora Torodovic, Artemisia Vulgaris, Jasper Westhaus, Zélie van Steirteghem, Hatty Nestor, Cruda Collective, Mayis Rukel, Mira Thompson, Sophie de Seriere, Matthew Wang, Frances Enyedy, Toni Brell, Sarah Saleh, Sophie Rose Wright, Nathalie Golde, Layla Durrani, Ariane Boot, Liza Borovikova, Joy Brandsma, Liza Prins, Noah Voelker, Justin Nuij, Pluto Polanco and yours truly.
For sale at San Serriffe (Amsterdam), KIOSK (Rotterdam) or via our channels.
Within the context of critical attention, what are the possible roots and branches of the word ‘like’? While globally still moving towards new modes of being together while apart, in our writing seminar with Amelia Groom the Sandberg Critical Studies department has examined liking, likenesses, imitation and fandom as methods and reflected upon the notion of ‘reparative reading’ and the possibilities of affective criticality.
To launch the publication that came out of this writing workshop, we hosted an evening of readings and performances in Perdu on February 19th.
I read a text titled ‘A baroque longing’, which is based on a drawing by Emma Crabtree.
In this workshop, I invited participants to join me in making a love token, and to use this object as a starting point for their personal reflections on romance (in all its guises). Through a short reading of the history of this gesture, participants were asked to enter a guided room-walk in search of a romantic object in their everyday surroundings. They then worked with their found material, thought and spoke about ways to imitate their object’s meaning, and finally incorporated it in the making and writing of a love token.
This workshop was hosted on Valentine’s day by Terrarista TV, an artist-run online streaming channel based in Kassel.
On Sunday the 27th of September the first edition of DAISYWORLD magazine, a publication run by Zazie Stevens, will be released, albeit softly, at San Serriffe between 13:00 – 17:00. For this issue, I wrote a fictitious love letter called ‘Scarf Body’ as part of my broader research on romance.
Project description taken from the event:
DAISYW✿RLD MAGAZINE is a seasonal art publication on beauty, perception, the sensory, the nonhuman, ecology & erotica with an emphasis on interconnectedness. Reflecting on the passed season – a record of events; the artist’s intimate knowledge based on observation – while softly moving into the next; each issue will launch in-between seasons; appreciating experience, transition and metamorphosis instead of anticipating the next big thing.
Issue #1 contributors Dayna Casey, Erika Ceruzzi, CAConrad, Naomi Credé, Caroline Heredia-Abernethy, Hannah Hoekstra, Lars Holdhus, Ilja Karilampi, Cristina Kolozsvary-Kiss, Daisy Lafarge, Juliette Lizotte, Laura Lynx, Lilly Marks, Vibeke Mascini, Niklaus Mettler, Amira Prescott (Brot Against Shame), Scott Rogers, Alexander Sand, Lara Schoorl, Zazie Stevens, Hansje Struijk, Tom et Arthur, Renée Turner, Jacent Varoym, Nadia de Vries, Charlott Weise, Romy Day Winkel & Celina Yavelow.
The second issue of SNAKY ZINE is out now! For sale at San Serriffe, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Het Fort van Sjakoo and Circe’s Circus Nimboscope or via our channels.
This edition’s theme is ‘movement’. Here we learn about queer lichens, think through disability and shock, compost hot monsters and fish men, get rid of the anxiety of bike-riding, learn about eggs and spirals, work through issues of ancestry and pride, lay bridges between menstrual blood and trees, decide our bodies to be lovers, be trash and love it, are on the path even hours later, send our inner caregiver on a break, work through a secret crush, admit we are garlic girls, write letters to an ex, glorify Omegle, dwell on gender expressions, create new personas and leave, know how wonderful it is to be a body and take lessons from past dates.
Contributions by Jonny Bruce, Eefje de Neeling, Mira Thompson, Nicolai Schmelling, Georgia Rose Weaver, Kiko Seara, Heli St. Luce, Jill van Grinsven, Lily McNeil, T, Toni Brell, Mateo Vega, Pykel van Latum, Justin Nuij, Manon Bachelier and Lucie Fortuin.
Alice Slyngstad has assembled a self-published zine in which my text ‘Omegle, or The Accidental’ is published.
From Thursday May 28th till Saturday May 30th there will be a wonderful online symposium called “Love Spells & Rituals For Another World” featuring artists and scholars working with alternative visions of love, intimacy and desire from black, feminist and queer perspectives.
I will give the introduction to the first part of the symposium, a live broadcast from a fictive radio station by NYC-based artist Andrea Ray, on No Bounds Radio at 11:00 (GMT+2)
For the full schedule of the symposium, please visit their website.
On the 6th of February Sandberg Institute will have its annual open day for prospective students and other interested parties. My videowork “I wanted to be with you so I said I dreamed of you” (2019) will be screened throughout the day at the Critical Studies department. At 17:00 I will do a reading of my essay “Interrupting Chronos” in the theory room.
On the 18th of January the Sandberg Critical Studies department will present our most recent publication called “A friend of a friend: Gossip, Rumour and Anecdote.” I will have a screening of my videowork “I wanted to be with you so I said I dreamed of you.” (2019)
After this launch the book will be available at San Serriffe and at the department.
Today the first edition of SNAKY ZINE came out. The theme of this issue is ‘healing’, which is addressed through poetry, rants, theory and collages by various contributors.
In this issue we memeify tarot, rant about self-care and guilt, present poetry about ex-lovers, write about intergenerational trauma, about the safe haven of the swimming pool, read poetry about mourning, co-opt ‘the ugly’ as a way to empowerment, set out an astrology 101 lesson, write about multispecies entanglement, fictionalize experiences of health as a moral obligation, read poetry about needles and share stories about abusive family relations.
Contributions by Luna Naumer Mateos, Mira Thompson, Gaia Willemars and Merethe Riggelsen Gjørding.
On its launch in OT301 we’ll enjoy performances by blusher, Ibi, Maja Chiara Faber, Lottie Walker, Dagmar Bosma, Loïc Vandam, Ashleigh Tia Mitchell, Joy Brandsma, Luna Naumer Mateos, Sofie Ejlers Wolthers, Mandy Pixel, Persian Princis, Mira Thompson & Feline Baek Hjermind.
