Esteban Jefferson, December 2, 2022, 2022. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton, Berlin and Los Angeles, and 303 Gallery, New York. Photo: Justin Craun.
Come Closer; Now Go Away
A writing workshop by Labeja Kodua and Lara Haworth exploring narrative and emotional positioning in relation to architecture, memory and the works of Esteban Jefferson.
Through short writing exercises, readings and discussions, this writing workshop will discover how we experience certain places and architectures in different emotional states, and how we can focus in, zoom out, and play with this narrative distance through our writing. How do certain objects, the historical record, or personal memory within places affect our emotional states? What do we forget, what do we misplace, shrink, delete or exacerbate when we are experiencing joy, grief, misery, contentment or ambivalence? At the end of this workshop we will understand more deeply how emotions affect our sense of place, and experience how playing with register and perspective can create rich and affecting text.
Preparation:
Headphones and a music playing device is necessary. Please come with a few songs that make you feel a range of emotions, from joy to sadness. Also, anything to write on: a laptop, a phone, or a notebook and pen.
Outcome:
Three discrete pieces of text, in a form of your choice, written in response to three visual and sensory provocations.
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Biographies:
Labeja Kodua is a Ghanaian-British poet, writer and programmer who lives in London. After studying English and Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths, he went on to complete The Novel Studio writing course at City, University of London and is currently working on his first novel. Labeja has published poetry with Forward Poetry and Rattle magazine and has essays with The Smart Set magazine.
Lara Haworth is a queer writer, poet and filmmaker. In 2022, she won a Bridport Prize for an extract of her novel, Monumenta, was highly commended in the Café Writers Poetry Competition for her poem, ‘The Thames Barrier’, wrote and narrated a podcast, The Swimming Pool, for NTS radio and was commissioned to write a longform autofiction feature, ‘Mistakes are Pure Colour’, for Extra Extra Magazine. In 2023 Monumenta was acquired by Ellah Wakatama at Canongate, and will be published as their lead debut in June 2024.
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