Dear Susannah (April 2017)

I propose that the conventions of academia may subject the various practices and practitioners of contemporary art to a set of behaviours that privileges certain modes of knowledge and the discovery and presentation of that knowledge over others. This text aims to perform this position through its form, as a means in and of itself to assert the agency of creative practice as a set of processes, and outcomes that are not in any way lacking in rigour, or needing to be brought into line, or licked into shape. The writing you read has been assembled slowly, in pieces, both knowingly and unknowingly, drawing on an array of writing approaches, channeling a spectrum of literary and creative forms, from within and across and around fiction, art writing and other modes of experimental writing. This text is not an academic article, although it was written as a willing acceptance of an invitation to be included in this journal; as with much contemporary art practice, it performs through and in relation to the place that it is encountered within and I expect this to be the case here. Unlike most of my work, this text is untitled. This is part one of a two-part article in the form of a letter