March 5 / 19-23 / Free admission / 20 years
The Queer Gaze curated by: Priya Bains & Burcu Şahin
Time
The American-Palestinian poet Fady Joudah writes in his poetry collection […], during the ongoing genocide in Gaza:
I write for the future
because my present is demolished.
I fly to the future
to retrieve my demolished present
as a legible past.
In this edition of The Queer Gaze, the poets Priya Bains and Burcu Şahin invite you to an evening centered around time as a topic, condition and object for writing and thinking. How does one write in a time where one’s own and others’ existence is under threat? What other times might be possible to imagine and reach through literature? What times already surround us — without us noticing them?
💚 Priya Bains is a poet, translator, essayist and editor of the literary journal Vinduet (The Window). She made her debut with the poetry collection Med restene av mine hender at Forlaget October in 2021, a booked centered around migration, rituals and storytelling. Bains also teaches poetry, and, together with Bendik Vada, she is the editor of the translation series Jorden har ingen periferi.
💚 Burcu Şahin is a writer, translator and literary critic. Her first collection of poems Broderier was published in 2018 and revolves around the language of textiles, migration and genealogies of mothers and daughters. Her second book Blodbok continues the exploration of heritage, but in the context of colonial history and the archive of the State Institute for Race Biology (1922-56). Şahin has translated Tezer Özlü, Amina Elmi and Gloria Anzaldúa into Swedish.
💚 Rana Issa is a writer, curator and translator that enjoys exploring the histories, theories and practices of language. Rana Issa’s passion is to find the balancing point between public humanities, activist engagements and research. She writes in a variety of genres and languages and has occupied leadership roles in various aspects of cultural production. She is the artistic director of Masahat.no and has published in leading journals and platforms in Arabic, Norwegian and English. Her book The Modern Arabic Bible was published with Edinburgh University Press in 2023. Her autobiographical book, Tung tids tale was recently published in Norway with Press Forlag.
