Friday, 17 May 2024, 7.30 pm, diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery
Film screening and conversation with
Jasmine Johnson
what’s safe, what’s gross, what’s selfish and what’s stupid is a story assembled from material collected over the last three years. Jasmine Johnson has always made work with people, using drawings, paintings and videos. As Jasmine decides to turn the camera on themself as they try to get pregnant – first at home and then moving into the medicalised world of fertility clinics – they begin to record various dialogues with donors, friends and elders about desire and reproduction. The cast of queers assembled in the film establish themselves as a chosen family, offering hope and humour.
“what’s safe, what’s gross, what’s selfish and what’s stupid is an invaluable and rich project interrogating how to become bio-reproductive in a queer way, even as a desire, and its logistical, emotional and philosophical implications.” Oreet Ashery
The screening will be followed by a conversation with the director Jasmine Johnson, who is an artist and works as a lecturer at Goldsmiths University of London. They are currently undertaking a practice-led DPhil at Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, on the subject of queer reproduction. Their debut feature-length documentary what’s safe, what’s gross, what’s selfish and what’s stupid had its World Premiere at BFI Flare 2024.
The event is co-hosted by diffrakt’s feminist reading group the personal is theoretical.
