Please join us on Monday 16th December from 5.30-7.00pm at PUBLICS for the launch of the zine Dear Society, and the performance Laments for our wretched by Aez Pinay.

Dear Society, is a bi-montly grieving circle founded by Julia Fidder, during each session the audience is invited to engage with the topic of grief on either a personal or societal level.

The zine is a collection of grief with contributions by the hosts and the attendees of the grieving circle over the past year. They reflect on their experience of grief that is geared to various objectives, in various different ways, underlining an openness to a multitude of experiences in grief. Besides the zine, a T-shirt will be launched which takes on the shape of a wearable version of the zine.

The zine contains contributions by Mariia Mytrofanova, Joss Allen, Anastasia (A) Alevtin, Josefin Vargö, Miku Satu, Tom K Kemp, Aez Pinay, Staci Bu Shea and Julia Fidder. Graphic design by Emese Veszely.

Aez Pinay
A.E.Z Pinay (he/they) is a queer Afropean artist, filmmaker and performer. In his creations mourning, melancholy and absurdity are re-occurring elements. He cultivates his ability to exist outside of marketing values; he rests, does nothing, lies down in the grass, prays, mourns, cries, observes the living and opens himself to the possibilities of different worldings. Through his work Pinay researches the black ethos in France and the Afrodiasporic experience in its poetic, political and spiritual expression. He currently studies and works in Amsterdam and is preparing the publication of his first book that will be published by Faces cachées Editions.

Laments for our wretched is a practice and research embedded in spirituality. It is an attempt to give space to a public expression of grief. A way of honoring what has been lost, honoring the nameless lives that have been mowed. It’s an attempt to craft and knit those lives and losses into a common living soundscape, embodying the voices of many mourners.
It’s also a research about the profound rhythms of cries and sobs; an attempt to give a logical and poetic organization to these expressions of sorrow.

Julia Fidder
Julia Fidder (she/her) is a writer and curator based between The Netherlands and Finland. She works both independently and as an institutional curator connected to artist-led organization SEA Foundation. Within her practice she focuses on themes regarding grief, rituals, (institutional) healing and collective structures of living and working together. Fidder explores collaborative strategies and working methods that stem directly from her thematic research and has over the past years been investigating grieving as a curatorial method. Resulting from this, she underlines the importance for reciprocity and shared agency in her collaborations.