About The Event
Organized by S.J Norman (Wiradjuri) and Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee Nation Citizen) Knowledge of Wounds (KoW) is an autonomous gathering space, a ceremony, a fire, a calling to vibrate in good relations across Indigenous time and space. The third iteration of KoW offers a mid-winter space of generative respite, reflection and deep listening amidst the ongoing reverberations of collective rupture.
Continuing their mission as the stewards of this vessel of Indigequeer knowledge exchange, Norman and Pierce have worked with composer Chloe Alexandra Thompson (Beaver Lake Cree), audio-visual artist DB Amorin (Pacific Islander) and a line-up of esteemed First Nations poets to create a hypnotic sonic installation, an audiovisual loop which entwines the voices of Indigenous queer and two-spirit poets from four continents. Centering the Wiradjuri principle of Yindyamarra- a word meaning to move with slowness, gentleness and respect – this offering from Knowledge of Wounds honors the Indigenous body at rest. Conversant with the established currents of Black thought which name rest as an active praxis of defiance in a culture of extraction, the artists of KoW 2023 invites a consideration of rest-as-refusal within an Indigenous framework. What does it mean to offer our bodies to stillness? To move with seasonal cycles of withdrawal? To pause and listen deeply to the voices and vibrations of Land, as we navigate the sacred thresholds between the making, unmaking, and re-making of worlds?
About The Organizer
SJ Norman (they/them) is an artist, writer and curator. Their career has so far spanned seventeen years and has embraced a diversity of disciplines, including solo and ensemble performance, installation, sculpture, text, video and sound. Their work has been commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney, Performance Space New York, Venice International Performance Art Week, and the National Gallery of Australia, to name a few. They are the recipient of numerous awards for contemporary art, including a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship and an Australia Council Fellowship. Their writing has won or placed in numerous prizes, including the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award, the Peter Blazey Award, the Judith Wright Prize and the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. Permafrost is their debut collection of short stories. In 2019, they established Knowledge of Wounds, a global gathering of queer First Nations artists, which they co-curate with Joseph M Pierce. They are currently based between Sydney and New York. Joseph M. Pierce is Associate Professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University. His research focuses on the intersections of kinship, gender, sexuality, and race in Latin America, 19th century literature and culture, queer studies, Indigenous studies, and hemispheric approaches to citizenship and belonging. He is the author of Argentine Intimacies: Queer Kinship in an Age of Splendor, 1890-1910 (SUNY Press, 2019) and co-editor of Políticas del amor: Derechos sexuales y escrituras disidentes en el Cono Sur (Cuarto Propio, 2018) as well as the forthcoming special issue of GLQ, “Queer/Cuir Américas: Translation, Decoloniality, and the Incommensurable.” His work has been published recently in Revista Hispánica Moderna, Critical Ethnic Studies, The Art Newspaper, and has also been featured in Indian Country Today. Along with SJ Norman (Koori, Wiradjuri) he is co-curator of the performance series Knowledge of Wounds. He is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
Please Note
Installation begins on January 13th with a reading by Demian DinéYazhi’ (Diné, Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá and Tódích’íí’nii clans) and Jazz Money (Wiradjuri). Free with RSVP. This installation runs tills February 4th.
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