Fresh Fruit Workshop: The Room With the Objects: A speculative writing workshop

10.09.26, 6-8pm. Free. For 18-30s.

This speculative writing workshop takes inspiration from Olga Ravn’s science-fiction novel The Employees, which chronicles the visceral, emotional impact a room of objects has on the crew of a spaceship – and was initially written as an exhibition text accompanying a collection of sculptures.

Moving through the gallery, participants are invited to write about their experience of Eva Rothschild’s The Void Presses the Wall, attending to the sculptures’ material, affective presences. Responding to a series of prompts, we’ll use writing and deep attention to commune with the sculptures, sensing speculative relations between ourselves and the work. 

We reflect on the line between object, sculpture, and being. How would we write about these sculptures if we discovered they were alive? Participants are invited to write two speculative texts: one, a ‘scientific’, clinical catalogue text to accompany the sculpture in an institutional setting; two, an embodied first-person text drawing on emotion, sensation, and memory. We’ll end by returning to the gallery for (optional) collective sharing of our work, reading around and to the sculptures.

Xuanlin Tham is a Singaporean writer, curator, and maker based in Edinburgh, keenly interested in the (collective) body and desire. Their book Revolutionary Desires: The Political Power of the Sex Scene explores the sex scene’s capacity to interrupt the violences of capitalism, and is out with 404 Ink. They programme at Take One Action, an arts organisation harnessing the transformative power of film and storytelling for social and environmental justice in Scotland and beyond. As an independent curator and facilitator, they have worked with Glasgow Short Film Festival, Queer East, Rhubaba, and the Edinburgh Art Festival. Xuanlin’s writing on film and culture has been published in e–flux, British GQ, i-D, Little White Lies, and AnOther Magazine, among others.

Access

• Our building has step-free access and is wheelchair accessible via a lift.

• All of our toilets and gender neutral.

• During events and workshops, we can facilitate a quiet space if required.

• We have sensory backpacks available.

• Further access information can be found at the link below:

www.fruitmarket.co.uk/accessibility/

If you have any specific access requirements that you’d like to tell us about when you’re booking a Fresh Fruit workshop or event, please let us know at info@fruitmarket.co.uk

Fresh Fruit is made possible with funding from the Garfield Weston Foundation and William Grant Foundation.