p. 39 | Nina Wakeford

Nina Wakeford uses performance, installation, and moving image to address unfinished struggles from past social movements, along with the challenges triggered by their reactivation. Her inspiration comes from historical archives, as well as her friends, lovers, and their obsessions.

In this project, her starting point was the passing of a friend, Anna Livia Brawn, and a forgotten book. Anna had translated into English a 1930 novel written by openly lesbian Parisian author Lucie Delarue-Mardrus. In this novel, the main character lives as both a man and a woman. The author incorporates caricatures of bourgeois lesbian "celebrities", some known for sharing intimate moments during horseback rides in the Bois de Boulogne. Yet the author died nearly penniless, having alienated family and friends by refusing to end her relationship with a working-class music hall singer with a "parigot" accent and "vulgar language". After finally finding a first edition of the novel at Librairie Vignes in Paris, Nina felt she had reconnected with Anna.

In response to the challenges of reinterpreting and narrating moments of clandestine encounters between women, and in a bibliophile impulse, Nina brings together an assemblage of recently gathered, sung, spoken, and staged materials.

Nina Wakeford (United Kingdom) is in residence through the 2–12 program