Book Launch: Love Is The Language That Sex Speaks
Reception: Saturday, January 12, 2PM - 4PM

A Saturday afternoon with three Saskatoon-based queer writers to celebrate and launch "Love Is The Language That Sex Speaks" by Rebecca La Marre. Readings begin at 2:30PM.

Love Is The Language That Sex Speaks

There is a scene in Pier Paulo Pasolini’s Decameron in which a crowd mourns the death of a saint. The performance of their grief is guided by local religious custom. While they are transported into an encounter with the sublime, pick-pockets steal their wallets. This image is a point of departure for this book, its text gathered by recording whatever thoughts were of enough substance to be noted. Much of the material is of uncertain authorship, derived from overheard conversations, the utterances of others, and passages from books, articles, films, and images. Over four years Rebecca La Marre collected phrases as if physical material, assembling an argument for what a secular approach to grieving may look like. 

- ‘Through this accumulation of fleeting thoughts, given by the simple act of daily writing a body that can feel love and pain, Rebecca La Marre attempts to “imagine a positive encounter” with various others--positive in the sense of both the vague promise of happiness and the ethically indifferent electric charge of relating.’  - Hannah Black

Readings by

Omayra Issa
Leigh Thomas Piyesiw Okanaweyihcikew
Rebecca La Marre

Omayra Issa is a queer black African writer. She is a Songhoy and Fulani nomad who moves through languages and continents.
She has been living as a guest on treaty 6 territory.
Her storytelling explores desire, exile, and memory.
Omayra also works as a journalist for CBC/Radio-Canada.

Leigh Thomas is a Cree-Metis Two Spirit, Genderqueer Gay man from Pelican Lake First Nation. A sad gay brown boi who lives off Coffee, prayers, and blueberries.
He is a Governor General Saskatchewan service pin recipient and a newly minted 2018 CBC Future 40 Leadership award recipient.
Leigh loves the people, land, and learning.

Rebecca La Marre is a Canadian artist with a writing, research, and performance practice. Her work investigates how technologies shape bodies, and what that contributes to an experience of being a person. Her performances are driven by what she reads, using materials that include the human voice, text, and clay. Her work is exhibited and published internationally. Venues include the Serpentine Gallery, London, MOMA PS1, and the Darling Foundry. Her writing has been published in journals and periodicals including the Organism for Poetic Research, Poetry is Dead, E.R.O.S. Journal and Through Europe. 

Installation Images