I Am With Fire Between My Teeth: Translating Monique Wittig

50 years after the publication of The Lesbian Body and 20 years after her death, we honour the life and work of the French philosopher Monique Wittig (1953-2003) with two responses to her work. Wittig’s focus on the abolition of the gender-class system inspired generations of (lesbian) feminists to engage with her ideas about the body, gender and sex.

By breaking the boundary between text and body, three artists respond to her work in translation: Monique Todd reads What is in m/y eye? in response to The Lesbian Body (1973), Amina Szecsödy and Chloe Chignell perform Shadow Text in response to ‘Les Guérillères’ (1971).

This event is part of #Wittig2023, an initiative of Ami.es de Wittig.

About the guest speakers

Amina Szecsödy (b. 1995, Sweden) is a performance maker based in Brussels. Her work incorporates quotations, sound design, scriptwriting, and collaboration, channeling the dissonant voices of the past and future in the immediate present. Via this process of ‘siphoning off’, Szecsödy develops new complexities and combinations of language and gesture. Szecsödy holds a BA in Performing Arts from Malmö Theatre Academy and is currently finishing her MA in Choreography and Performance at Giessen University. 

Chloe Chignell (AU, 1993) is an artist based in Brussels working across text, choreography and publishing. Her work focuses on language within a choreographic frame; she invests in writing as a body building practice, examining the ways in which language makes us up. Chloe graduated from a.pass (BE, 2020) and from the research cycle at P.A.R.T.S (BE, 2018). Since 2019 Chloe co-runs rile* a bookshop and project space for publication and performance with Sven Dehens. 

Monique Todd is a London-born writer currently researching the linguistic postures that deliver the reading voice. Her work takes the form of essays, poetry and forums. She graduated from the MA Critical Studies at Sandberg in Amsterdam.