The essayist
Benjamin Forster, Ida Lawrence, Jac Ball, Magda Stanová, Mark Hislop. Mitch Cairns, Nina Ross, Phuong Ngo, Pilar Mata Dupont
Curated by Jasmin Stephens
Opening Saturday 3 August at 2pm
Opening remarks by writer Astrid Lorange
Exhibition dates 3 to 31 August 2019
The essayist is an exhibition inspired by the literary form of the essay. It presents work characterised by the exacting thinking, careful observation and increasingly confessional aesthetic associated with contemporary essay writing. It is a mode of writing that has come to prominence through writers such as Maggie Nelson and Teju Cole. Against this backdrop of recent attention to first-person writing and the rise of digital readership, today’s essay making – at turns memoir, poetry, philosophy and criticism – is shaped by theoretical shifts relating to feminist, non-binary and embodied approaches to thought and feeling.
