Archive of a Poet (part 1)
+ end of season party

NB! Directly after the programme ends, around 22:30, the end of season wrap party commences, with drinks and music until 03:00 in the night! The party is free and open to everyone, also to guests who aren’t going to the programme. Confirm your visit by obtaining a free ticket via the ticketlink.

• Programme: 20:00-22:00. Doors open at 19:30
• Party: 23:00-03:00. Doors open at 22:30.

About the programme series: inspired by the Literary Museum’s archive and the DIG podcast episode Anti-archief – in which Simone Atangana Bekono, Romy Day Winkel and Nisrine Mbarki talked about the word “archive” – we bring together writers to reflect on the many dimensions of archiving.

Perdu invites poets and thinkers who work with archives as part of their writing practice: who build special archives themselves and/or draw from existing archives for their work. For this first installation, we asked poet and translator Radna Fabias, writer and professor of gender studies Maaike Meijer, and poet and professor of English literature Mia You, to offer insight about their own archives and to share how these influence their creative processes. In addition to the three guests’ presentations, there will be a joint discussion.

The precise content of the evening will depend on the contributions of the speakers. They are free to approach their presentation didactically, technically, philosophically, abstractly, socially or personally. To talk about personal archives that preserve memories and heritage, artistic archives that provide inspiration, or historical archives that form our collective memory. To consider topics such as:

• The importance and significance of archives both for one’s own work and for the wider social context;
• The relationship between power and archive: who decides which archive is valuable, how is that decided, and where is the archive kept (and guarded)?
• Historiography and archives: any archival material can be used to tell a story. Which ones are used and which ones are destroyed or suppressed?
• The fragility of an archive: who will understand it, and how long will an archive last?
• The different forms an archive can take;
• The risks of caring too much about archives;
• The danger or violence of the archive.

Besides gaining insight into different archives and the discourses about them, we want to explore new ideas, possibilities and plans with both the guests and the audience. We invite everyone to brainstorm, share and reflect together on the role of archives in – and their impact on – our lives and work.

Radna Fabias (1983) was born and raised in Curaçao and graduated from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU). In 2018 her debut poetry collection Habitus was published, which won all major poetry awards in the Netherlands and Belgium, including the Herman de Coninck Prijs and the Grote Poëzieprijs. She was named the literary talent of 2019 by De Volkskrant. Fabias’ style is characterised by great variety, both in terms of content and style. Habitus has been translated into English, French, Spanish, Arabic and German. Fabias also translates poetry herself. She is the Dutch translator of both Warsan Shire and Nobel laureate Louise Glück.

Maaike Meijer is emeritus professor of gender studies at Maastricht University. She lives in Amsterdam and is a writer, researcher and public speaker. In addition to numerous books and articles, she has written biographies of M. Vasalis (2011) and of F. Harmsen van Beek (2018). She specializes in gender, Dutch literature, poetry and song, feminism, biography and cultural history. Her latest book Radeloze helden: De verbeelding van mannelijkheid in literatuur en film was published in 2023.

Mia You was born in South Korea, grew up in the United States, and now lives in Utrecht. She is author of the poetry collection I, Too, Dislike It (1913 Press, 2016) and has published in De Gids, Artforum, Boston Review and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She teaches at Utrecht University and the Sandberg Institute. Festival (Belladonna, 2024), her second collection, is her first work in Dutch translation (Uitgeverij Chaos). Excerpts can be found here and here.