“Law of Desire is Fascist”

Kari Rosenfeld and Lou Lou Sainsbury
sound, subtitles (15:50)

Gasworks, London,
Lou Lou Sainsbury’s “Earth is a Deadname”
July 6 -September 17, 2022

Motto Books, Berlin
Affect Aliens
August 9, 2022 - September 10, 2022

Jo Mariner’s powerful voice takes on kalidiscopes while subtitles follow their jolting rhythm. Part dialogue to oneself, part ramble, part lament, “The Law of Desire is Fascist” complicates gender, desire, and religous narratives in a world of pharmoco-dystopian possibility. An exploration of the history of whippets, a celebration of the potenetials of HRT, and a glimpse inside the body from another world: “Can’t you find another way to eat me? stick your finger into a gaping hole in my ribs—feel warm lung bone, appendix, take your finger out, covered in bile, oil check. Yellowed to the knuckle to believe me. ”

“The word ‘form’ is crucial: this work is, at least partly, about how words form us, as trans people whose identities were formed largely by the categorizations of the 20th century medical establishment, but mainly about the aesthetic, social and political possibilities that come with rejecting the forms imposed by outsiders and creating our own...The Law of Desire Is Fascist’s dreams of no longer being ‘trapped in a body’.” - Juliet Jacques, Frieze Magazine

 

This was commissioned as a part of Lou Lou Sainsbury's solo exhibition 'Earth is a Deadname' at Gasworks with generous support from the Freelands Foundation.