Dear you,
(Love Letters as a tool for creative and critical writing)

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A workshop by Tanya Nedelskaya

Sound massage by Laurent Isnard

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November 2 2019

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Dear you,

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I will be honest with you: this is a love letter. You might be surprised by its form and content, it might resemble pure fantasy. This letter is an attempt to engage you in the experiment of “love correspondence”, please follow me in this desire. 

Maybe you already have an idea or some knowledge about what a love letter is, how and why one can write it. And how it feels in this space of warm intimacy where you are heard, where intersubjectivity happens and “the otherness” unfolds itself on distance. I’d love you to share that with me.

Yet, I am sure you have some obsessions to explore and not many of them receive your fullest attention. Maybe it is your significant other or someone you met only once; I won’t judge you either if you are in love with a cyborg or your future self, a dead king or a hunchback sex worker, an island on planet Earth or a bird from another dimension, a yogurt cup or a furry glove. As long as it keeps you going, inspired!... It might be something or someone unknown - like me sending you this love letter from the other side of the screen. 

I don’t know you either: maybe you could write from the perspective of a dog, or an ancient stone that humans call “artifact”, or a freak on a leash who likes it up the ass. Top or bottom, your love letter could be a manifesto about defying categories. You could write it also from the very bottom of your Self. It’s a moment of pure fantasy but also of introspection. 

Oh, I know, there is a big gap between who we are and who we want to be, between the desire to share our inner world and the consequences of that exposure. I also feel vulnerable and afraid sometimes. I love you when you are vulnerable. 

You don’t have to respond straight away. We could think about your response together. Let’s talk about it when we meet and put it in writing. I could be guiding you through examples of love stories and devotion. Like the one of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, Henry Miller and Anais Nin, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heiddeger, Chris Kraus, Kathy Acker and Mackenzie Wark, Camila Marambio and the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, Theodor Twombly and OS1 “Samantha” ... there are so many ways of yearning.

Please forgive me if you don’t find here the romance you would expect to find in a love letter - I assure you, my passion is burning. I am also into haiku and aphrodisiac plants, sound massage and collective sensual experiences. I hope you like experiments too. 

With love, 

tn xx