New Short Story & Photographs: Albaz and Assouline in Eleven Eleven

February 14, 2014

Once upon a time in Lisbon there were two lesbian chickens who fell in love. And during the Portuguese Inquisition, no less. Moral decisions ensued. Lovelorn debates surrounding strategies for survival and social conscience. What happened? What happened? Luckily, the marvelous editor Hugh Behm-Steinberg and the fine folks at California College of Art’s Eleven Eleven Journal have published my piece ALBAZ & ASSOULINE: OR WHY WE MUST AT ALL COSTS AVOID SHRINES TO WOMEN IN TEARS.

http://elevenelevenjournal.com/issue-16/quintan-ana-wikswo/

It’s a series of my photographs, and it’s a story, and it’s a film, and it’s got me reading the text very slowly and carefully – with feeling – over a crackling fire in a secret compound in New Mexico. There is music by Arthur Kell on the estimable upright bass.

And the film features two of the most intelligent and romantically compelling chickens, brought to your screen with special thanks to Beth Kaiser and her Red Hook Hens, especially her hen Amy Winehouse, who performed the role of Assouline.

Hint: read the story, and THEN watch the film. 

Note (with inexplicable underlining): All the photographs were created in Portugal (Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra) and Spain (Seville), at the sites of the Inquisition and the Jewish ghettos. The photos were made using a salvaged 120mm military film camera manufactured during Franco’s dictatorship. The colors, textures, shapes and multiple layers within the photographs are all created using only the unique aberrations of the cameras’ optics, and the chemistry of the film. There is no software or computer manipulation in the images.