The
Queer
Theory
Library
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No New Pain (The Tool Library)
Written by Dani Janae, No New Pain is a series of poems made in response to Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House, commissioned by The Queer Theory Library. Janae’s poems were then engraved on a set of hand tools, made to be functional and available to the public as a tool library that can be checked out for use and for reading.
Engraved handtools, book, library cards.
Installed at Deering Estate for the 2023 Spring Contemporary exhibition Closer to Nature.
2021/2023
The Queer Theory Library is a library focused on creating a collective space for discussion, experimentation, and knowledge. Providing access to academic texts and activating them with curated cultural programming, the Library invites an engaged, imaginative experience and greater community dialogue. The Queer Theory Library also functions as an growing archive for local artists, writers, and residents to submit their work, writings, and ephemera.
With a mission to radically shift and explore possibilities for queer thought, culture, and liberation, the Library is focused on abolition and futurism. How we frame our past and present influences the future we build; how we perceive and write our realities creates new worlds. Through education, collaboration, and creation, the QTL aims to enable, empower, and inspire our queer communities.
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Untitled (The Seventh Sun Comes)
Framed text, moss scented yarzheit candle, dew drops, 33 year recovery medallion, burnt penny, green carnation, tabebuia trunk, snail shell.
Installed at Bas Fisher Invitational for The Symbiotic Shore
2021
Spit and swish, DO NOT SWALLOW
Standing atop a platform of dictionaries, I wore a double sided white button up and performed an unrecorded monologue between swishing and spitting saltwater into glass vessels for 2 hours.
Performed for the exhibition Possible Bodies at Phosphor Project Space.
dictionaries, saltwater, double sided business shirt, glass vessels, saliva.
2019
Top: post performance, exorcised saliva captured in glass vessel
Bottom: pre performance, empty vessel atop dictionaries
Top
black and white 35 mm film prints