As part of professor Jack Halberstam’s visit at the department of Cultural Studies, we are delighted to announce that non-binary trans* artist MC Coble and art historian and curator Louise Wolthers will hold a performative presentation, open to the public, of their artist book Things Change Anyway (2023) as it is indepted to the work and thinking of Jack Halberstam. This lecture functions as a prelude to Halberstam’s open lecture Beyond Repair: Queer Theories of the Broken, and takes place on Wednesday May 10th between 14.30 and 15.30 in lecture hall J222. For details about MC Coble and Louise Wolthers and the project Things Change Anyway please see the presentation below:
Things Change Anyway
Things Change Anyway (2023) is a collaboration between non-binary, trans* artist MC Coble and art / photo historian Louise Wolthers about various kinds of metamorphosis in life, bodies, relationships, and nature. The book first and foremost consists of photographs from the couple’s image archive, spanning a decade and presented in a non-linear editing. Intersecting the image flow are essays by Wolthers and drawings by Coble.
Things Change Anyway is an examination of the meaning of photography, looking and being seen outside of societal norms and regulations. One strand of photographs reflects Coble’s ongoing gender affirmation, another theme is Wolthers’ struggles with menopause. Other strands include still lifes and snapshots from the everyday – with all its vulnerability, imperfection, and impermanence. The images are woven together to form a dynamic montage across time and space reflecting what change, resistance, non-human connectivity and queer kinship might look like.
Wolthers’ personal essays contextualize single images with a wider body of photo history and gender/queer/trans* theory. Coble’s drawings form a visual, non-linear diary and synthesize various experiences in dialogue with the images – of dealing with depression and life during COVID, of being put on hold by the system, and of ways of transitioning and gaining agency.
Coble is a non-binary trans* artist, living and working in Gothenburg. They work mainly through performance art and photography. Wolthers is an art historian, writer, and curator. Since 2012 she is Head of Research and Curator at The Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg.
Other events:
Open lecture with Jack Halberstam 10 May
Seminar with Jack Halberstam 8 May
