“Waves make their ghost-like
appearances, taking with them
whatever’s in their path—even you”

—Bob Flanagan, “Driving into the World”

How does grief operate as a measurement of time? In honor of the 30th anniversary of Bob Flanagan’s passing, “Fragmented Chronosthesia: Lineage, Community, and Legacy of Bob Flanagan” will weave through an archive of remembrance, journals, and other ephemera, exploring the potential of frayed edges and the fraught spectacle of memory versus amnesia. Bob Flanagan’s artistic practice spanned across poetry, prose, performance, video, installation, sculpture, and more. Oftentimes collaborating with his dominatrix and love Sheree Rose, Flanagan worked with the potency of devotion, the haunt of death and further debilitation from cystic fibrosis operating as a mirror to his spectacular masochistic pursuits. He wrote several books including The Wedding of Everything (1983), Slave Sonnets (1986), Fuck Journal (1988), Pain Journal (1996) and Book of Medicine (unpublished) and read at The Poetry Project numerous times over the course of his career.

In this workshop, we will think through fissure as poetic form: veils, ghosts, hauntings, fog, and other debris. Participants will be invited to write across genres, from prose and sonnets, to long form poetry and daily journal entries. Each session will have dedicated time for writing and making. Reading and films will include the work of Y Howard, Shu Lea Cheang, Sheree Rose, Johanna Hedva, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Ana Mendieta, Andy Campbell, Amelia Jones, and more. The workshop welcomes writers, artists, and students of all kinds.

Bob Flanagan (1952–1996) was an artist, sadomasochist, musician, and poet. Over the course of his career and postmortem, Flanagan's work and collaborations with Sheree Rose have been exhibited nationally across the country including LACE, Santa Monica Museum of Art, and The New Museum as well as abroad in Canada, Japan, Germany, and Australia. Flanagan and Rose were two of the founding members of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Society of Janus. Flanagan was an avid community member at the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center. Bob Flanagan passed away on January 4th 1996 at the age of 43 from cystic fibrosis.