Writing a letter, especially a love letter, begins from a vulnerable place of sensing the recipient but never completely knowing how the letter will be received on the other side – especially when the relationship is complex and fraught. This kind of letter can never be neutral or apolitical; it brings the possibility of a radically destabilising or decentring relationship. Through a first-person voice, written with inks of tears and sweat, the writer is in both a terrifying and powerful position to carefully and painstakingly reveal their difficult feelings, while their reader hungrily waits to receive this they-know-not-what. Still, the words may not arrive at the right time.
How does letter writing become a living memory channelling an anticipated-emancipated future? What is the internal and external journey of this letter?
An artist and writer, Taey Iohe will travel with us to explore epistolary writing as a decolonising queer and feminist practice, and a form of diasporic storytelling between borders. They will share how they have been drawn to this intimate space from a public inquiry in their practice. Through challenging a linear idea of time, they explore unattainable translations and migratory stories within a private space, but situate them in relations of power and acceptance.
In the session we will read two letters, both written by children to their mothers, who emigrated to the States with very young families as the first generation of precarious migrants. Even though there is a 40 year gap between the two writers, Ocean Vuong and Hak Kyung Cha explore in a similar way the displacement of their native language and cosmology. These letters attempt to track their journeys in empathetic ways, to find the root of grief and struggle. We will also have a chance to write letters of our own, and possibly to post them. Enjoy the pleasure and sorrow of letter writing in this era of hyper-responsive and impulsive interaction.
No advance reading is required, as we will read from the text together during the event.
Ocean Vuong. ‘Letter to my mother who will never read’, On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Publishing Group, 2021).
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Calliope in Dictée (University of California Press, 2001).
This event is part of the Conflicts and Displacements season at Pushkin House.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Seoul, Taey Iohe is an artist and writer based in London. Taey is interested how losing language opens up the possibility of embodied knowledge in our understanding of social medicine, through an Asian queer feminist lens. They co-founded the Decolonising Botany Working Group, challenging colonial entanglements of knowledge-making around nature and migration. Together they have presented a performance, A Refusing Oasis at Documenta 15 (2022). Taey is an instigator of the Care for Collective Curatorial and is a working member of the Feminist Duration Reading Group. She completed her PhD in the programme of Gender, Identity and Culture, funded by Writing on Borders, at University College Dublin. Taey is currently a Constellations Cohort, a public art practitioners development programme at Up Project in partnership with Liverpool Biennial & Flat Time House (2022), and a Somerset House Resident supported by an exchange bursary programme.
Website: http://www.taey.com
Instagram: @taey.iohe