‘Everywhere is Haunted‘ provides a discourse on the themes of race, gender, queer identity and natural hostile spaces in horror through talks, screenings, live performances and a horror disco. Curated by Dee Sada.
Dee Sada is a London-based musician and curator. She currently performs in Paper Birch with Fergus Lawrie of Urusei Yatsura. The duo released their debut album, ‘morninghairwater’ via TAKUROKU and Reckless Yes records in 2021. Dee has created an eclectic and diverse collection of work over the last 12 years through projects such as percussive noise band, An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump, electronic duo Blue On Blue and improv performance bands The Noise Bodies and ORAL ORAL.
Dee is currently studying the MFA Curating course at Goldsmiths, University of London and was awarded the inaugural Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Art (CIRCA) scholarship. She was also awarded a 2022-2023 culture seed grant from Culture Mile London. Her curatorial practice is based on inclusion, diversity, sustainability and community-based engagement. She has recently worked on projects with artists Carolee Schneemann and Laure Prouvost.
In Conversation:
Ric Rawlins is the writer and director of the UK’s first folk horror anthology feature film, Rewilding, a trio of tales which take place in the fields, forests and caves of the UK’s wildest haunts. As a writer he’s published Rise of the Super Furry Animals (2015) about the seminal Welsh band, and he’s currently writing a new film about a river-dwelling vampire.
Emma Merkling is an art historian based at the Courtauld Institute of Art and Durham University, specialising in the intersections between art, science, and spiritualism in the long nineteenth century.
She is co-host of Drawing Blood, a podcast about visual culture, the history of science and medicine, and the macabre. Emma received her PhD from the Courtauld in 2021 for a thesis on spiritualist artist Evelyn De Morgan and science, and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Courtauld’s Centre for American Art, University of Stirling, and the Science Museum (London).
She has just completed a grant project on the scientific photographs of the medium ‘Margery’ Crandon, and is currently working on a book project, with Dr Thomas Hughes, on The Victorian Idyll in Art and Literature: Ecology, Matter, Form, where her contribution focuses on queer/more-than-human desire, ecology, and horror in the photography of Julia Margaret Cameron.
Live performance:
The Noise Bodies formed in April 2022 at Cafe OTO and performed an improvised piece inspired by James Tenney’s ‘Saxony’ and a recreation of ‘Noise Bodies’ originally performed by Schneemann and Tenney. The Noise Bodies are Frederick Fuller, Dee Sada, Noel Anderson and Mark Abbott.
There will also be a zine available on the night and the incredible Burning Witches Records on-site with their vast array of horror vinyl and cassette tapes.
Burning Witches Records is a UK-based record label specialising in forward-thinking electronic and heavy synth music. Born from a love of horror films and electronic music, Burning Witches presents artists that are pushing the boundaries of electronic music and music as a whole package. Opening track to album art to vinyl and cassette colour variants, Burning Witches Records makes every release count.
Dee Sada 