Dear, Dear—An Enlightened Epistolary Feminist Imaginary
Dear Emily, dear Elizabeth-Jane,
Thank you so much for the invitation to contribute to this special issue and be part of this conversation.
For a while now, I have not been writing “poems” per se, but rather a poetry that takes the shape of performance texts and live performances. So, instead of a poem, I’m sending you a letter, reflecting on these often collaborative poetic performances, which have helped me work out what I can do in my creative practice and how we can construct a community through paying attention, reading, speaking, writing, rehearsing, performing, and moving together.
Choosing the letter-form is also thematically apropos. Thinking of the Enlightenment women of letters, the salonnières, the précieuses, the letter was (and continues to be today) ideal as a medium of communication and as a metaphor for feminist networks of semi-public, sometimes invisible and secret, exchange. Over the last two years, I have been working on My Little Enlightenment Plays, a project that encompasses text, performance, installation, (sculptural) objects, lecture-performances, and is based on research, experimental translation, collaboration, and queer-feminist politics. I’ve called these forms, pieces, and engagements “star-gazing conversations” or “imaginary tête-à-têtes” with Enlightenment thinkers, writers, and (pseudo-)scientists. Both the process of rewriting, appropriating, or otherwise responding to these historical materials as well as the practice of working collaboratively with a group of feminist and queer artists, poets, performance makers, musicians, photographers, video artists, and important allies—is a way of creating a more diverse republic of letters. So far, my co-conspiring philosophes were: Kat Addis, Vahni Capildeo, Emmy Catedral, Prudence Chamberlain, Corina Copp, Cecilia Corrigan, Lucy Ives, Lanny Jordan Jackson, Natalia Jaeger, Constance De Jong, Josef Kaplan, r. karim, Simone Kearney, Adrianna Liedtke, Wendy Lotterman, Celine Lowenthal, Holly Melgard, Luke McMullan, Anna Moser, Yates Norton, Ciara Phillips, Nisha Ramayya, Lúa Ribeira, Erin Robinsong, Ada Smailbegovic, Jocelyn Spaar, Emma Stirling, Bridget Talone, and Tom Varley.
While I/we cannot undo the Enlightenment’s imperialism, chauvinism, and misogyny, we can draw attention to and rectify its historical fault lines and its problematic legacy, but also re-code its utopian promise of knowledge production and distribution within a community of equals by insistently queering its vision, by repeatedly presenting the work of women, and thus either gluing or shifting some enlightened tectonic plates, showing that the feminist project (just like the avant-garde project) remains unfinished. And this is precisely what the #MeToo hashtag highlighted: there’s more work to be done.
My performances, which try to give presence to women poetically and on stage, which attempt to create multidirectional dialogues between artists and writers, won’t somehow magically stop violence or prejudices against women, queer, trans-, non-binary, non-white, or otherwise marginalised voices and bodies, but they might work their own poetic magic in allowing for a small community of practice to create a world, momentarily, of many little enlightenments.
Sophie Seita, Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, Paper Tigers, Bold Tendencies, 2017.
Photo by Natalia Jaeger.
Sophie Seita, Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, Paper Tigers, Bold Tendencies, 2017.
Photo by Natalia Jaeger.
Sophie Seita, Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, Paper Tigers, Bold Tendencies, 2017.
Photo by Natalia Jaeger.
Sophie Seita, Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, Paper Tigers, La MaMa Galleria, 2017.
Photo by Sam Draxler.
Sophie Seita, Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, Paper Tigers, Issue Project Room, 2016.
Photo by Emmy Catedral.
Sophie Seita, Emilia Galotti’s Colouring Book of Feelings.
Emergency Eyewash/71 Ludlow, 2018. Photo by Lanny Jordan Jackson.
Sophie Seita, Emilia Galotti’s Colouring Book of Feelings.
Bargehouse/Oxo Tower, 2018. Projection and photo by Simone Kearney.