(XXX) - S.J Norman and Joseph M Pierce

Live streamed at LIVE ON-THE-LINE.
- Please note that Auslan Interpretation will unfortunately not be available for Saturday 24th 9.02am reading. Captioning will still be available on the access stream. 

“I do have a tongue
             that wants to speak
                       in the language of cultural desire […]

I want so much more”

Ellen van Neerven, Throat

“Funny how an Indian ‘I love you’ sounds more like ‘I am in pain with you’,” Joshua Whitehead, Jonny Appleseed

Broadcast online at sunset each day, this performance ritual centres a daily exchange of love letters between Koori artist and writer SJ Norman and Cherokee writer and scholar Joseph M Pierce. Writing from their current quarantine locations in Sydney and New York, each artist will read the other’s letter direct-to-camera as the sun sets over their city, every day of Liveworks.

(XXX) proposes a queered, decolonial inhabitation of the epistolary form—an artefact of the Western literary canon—as a space through which to trace the remote entanglement of two Indigenous people in creative, intimate, and embodied kinship. Invoking the violence of separation and the erotic poiesis of distance, Norman and Pierce consider what it means to express Indigenous love in the colonisers’ language. (XXX) continues a body of work by S.J Norman that maps a vast and growing network of queer, First Nations inter-connectedness spanning continents, cultures, and ancestral temporalities.

Speaking to the current disruption of transnational relationships and cultural ties that are a consequence of the current global pandemic, and exploring new forms for the exchange of First Nations knowledge and the strengthening of bonds, (XXX) bridges the intimate with the epic.

The work occurs at the following times: 

Day 1:
21st October, 9.06am AEDT // New York 6.06PM 20th October EDT (JOSEPH)
21st October, 7.14pm AEDT // New York 4.04AM 21st October EDT (S.J)

Day 2:
22nd October, 9.05am AEDT // New York 6.05PM 21st October EDT (JOSEPH)
22nd October, 7.14pm AEDT // New York 4.14AM 22nd October (S.J)

Day 3:
23rd October, 9.03am AEDT // New York 6.03PM 22nd October EDT (JOSEPH)
23rd October, 7.15pm AEDT // New York 4.15AM 23rd October EDT (S.J)

Day 4:
24th October, 9.02am AEDT // New York 6.02PM 23rd October EDT (JOSEPH)
24th October, 7.15pm AEDT // New York 4.15AM 24th October (S.J)

Day 5:
25th October, 9.01am AEDT // New York 6.01PM 24 October EDT (JOSEPH)
25th October, 7.17pm AEDT // New York 4.17PM 25 October EDT (S.J)

CONTENT WARNINGS: This performance contains strong language and sexual references. Strong themes are present throughout the reading including reference to medical procedures, suicidality, physical violence, chronic illness, ecocide, substance use, Blak deaths in custody. 

Duration: Between 10 to 30 minutes.

Captions and Auslan interpretation will be available for all sessions. 

(XXX) was commissioned by Performance Space and Copyright Agency's Cultural Fund. 

Register here

Liveworks hero image: Image by Deborah Kelly and Angela Goh, Designed Leuver Designs