This visual text marries J. Huizinga’s assertions regarding play with considerations of the grotesque [carnival] as outlined in Mikhail Bakhtin and Hans-Georg Gadamer. A lyrical narrative attempts to uncover resonances of this ‘grotesque play’ in one’s past, in the every day, in emotive terrains as a mechanism to enable heightened reader/viewer relationality, understanding. The text is read over a still shot filmed from a front porch that follows the diurnal movement of bodies and objects past its premises.
About the presenterChristina Mary Riley
Christina Riley is currently a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies and teaching fellow in Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. She recently moved from Brooklyn, NY, where she confounded/codirected a media literacy nonprofit for queer youth in the New York area while also working in digital archiving. Her current research interests include queer theory, social activism, affect theory and studies in feminism. She is also a published poet and hip hop journalist.