Nº75: Isabella Greenwood
The London based writer, critic and curator recs Sophie Calle, Hito Steyerl and her favourite patron saint.
We’re back with Isabella Greenwood. Read on to find out what she’s into, and if you’re new here, hit subscribe for secret recommendations every week.
Isabella Greenwood is a London based writer, critic and curator. Greenwood's work blends critical theory with reflections on digital culture, examining the intersections of technology, spirituality, cultural phenomena and memory. Her work often engages with hauntology, media archaeology, and posthumanist thought. She has contributed written works and criticism for Plaster, Polyester Zine, PM/AM, Vogue, Dazed, Cosmopolitan, Elephant Magazine, The Toe Rag, Uncontaminated and Metal Magazine.
☞ SOPHIE CALLE, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF (2007): One of my favourite artworks/ books that I own. Take Care of Yourself, is an art installation and book inspired by an email breakup letter the French artist received from her partner, which ended with the phrase, "Take care of yourself." Calle transformed her heartbreak into a collaborative, multidisciplinary project by asking 107 women from diverse professional backgrounds—including a lawyer, actress, psychologist, dancer, and linguist—to interpret, analyse, and respond to the letter according to their expertise.
The resulting work blends art, performance, literature, and psychoanalysis, offering a profound meditation on love, loss, language, and the gendered experience of emotional labour. Through these varied responses, Calle transforms a personal moment of vulnerability into a collective exploration of communication, intimacy, and power dynamics in relationships.
The project highlights the complexities of emotional interpretation while underscoring the therapeutic potential of art and shared experience: as well as showcasing true ontology, ie. offering multiple methodologies to arise at similar conclusions, or process similar types of information.
☞ FEMININITY AND DOMINATION: STUDIES IN THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF OPPRESSION (SANDRA LEE BARTKY) 1990: A seminal text on the literature of feminism–– essays include notes on the phenomenological dimensions of being a woman, and how women’s oppression operates through internalised norms and disciplinary practices, noting the way women internalise patriarchal standards, resulting in self-surveillance, self-objectification and a fragmented sense of self. A real blend of feminist theory, existential philosophy and critical social analysis to reveal the subtle mechanism of power that maintain gender inequality.
Though published in 1990, I’d recommend more inter-sectional texts to read alongside this, such as: Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects and Others by Sandra Lee Bartky (2006) or bell hooks’ Aint I a Woman (1981), alongside The Colour of Gender: Reimagining Democracy by Zillah Eisenstein (1994).
☞ DOGTOOTH (2009): (Yorgos Lanthimos pre the favourite). Obsessed with Lanthimos pre The Favourite, where Hollywood and its large scale budgets/ star-studded casts, seemed to dull the strange surrealness of old Lanthimos (miss him).
☞ IN DEFENCE OF THE POOR IMAGE, HITO STEYERL, ISSUE #10 (2009) E-FLUX JOURNAL:
One of my favourite essays (also love Duty Free Art by Steyerl)—
"The poor image is an illicit fifth-generation bastard of an original image. Its genealogy is dubious. Its filenames are deliberately misspelled. It often defies patrimony, national culture, or indeed copyright. It is passed on as a lure, a decoy, an index, or as a reminder of its former visual self. It mocks the promises of digital technology. Not only is it often degraded to the point of being just a hurried blur, one even doubts whether it could be called an image at all. Only digital technology could produce such a dilapidated image in the first place."
Relevant in the age of digital irony (from reposting low res 2011 memes, and other iterations of post-internt humour).
☞ ST. DYMPHNA: The saint of mental health, runaways and unknowable causes. Reportedly, a dead man was revived after being beaten with her bones— love this diva. She also appears in several paintings with a dagger (an indication of her martyrdom, and title as ‘demon slayer') through her head, which is a notable slay.
☞ MARK FISHER, ‘GHOSTS OF MY LIFE: WRITINGS ON DEPRESSION, HAUNTOLOGY AND LOST FUTURES’ (2014):
One of my favourite texts, and part of my collection on hauntology, an ongoing obsession.
Fisher's exploration of cultural melancholia, the spectral residue of lost futures, and the uncanny persistence of cultural forms long past their supposed expiration dates resonates deeply. I’m obsessed with his ability to weave together cultural criticism, personal vulnerability, and a sharp theoretical lens-–a blend of intimacy and intellectual rigour, where emotional undercurrents are not sacrificed in the pursuit of critical clarity.
What sets Ghosts of My Life apart is also Fisher's seamless navigation of high and low culture, collapsing distinctions between pop music, cinema, and critical theory. His analysis of artists like Burial and Joy Division sits alongside reflections on TV shows like The Fall and the writings of Derrida and Žižek, creating a tapestry of cultural hauntings that feels deeply lived-in rather than merely observed. This interdisciplinary, almost collagic approach, with themes of loss, temporality, and cultural residue resonate deeply with the type of work I wish to do/ focus criticism and writing on.
Fisher doesn't just diagnose hauntology as a cultural condition; he inhabits it (love). His writing carries a felt sense of mourning—not just for personal losses or individual struggles with depression, but for collective futures foreclosed by late capitalism.
☞ CUTTINGS, THEODORE ROETHKE (1948): An all time favourite poet, and poem.
☞ PLAQUE ON A PARK BENCH: I think this is sweet, and real. Sometimes the sea is very wide, and the boat feels too small (even when in other instances the boat was too big, and the sea, static/ stuck or constricting).
☞ TERESA MARGOLLES, EN EL AIRE (2003/2011): Installation, bubbles produced with water from soaked fabrics that had been braced in places of violent acts in the periphery of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Children seen running around between the bubbles, their parents oblivious to the work’s description.
An all time favourite piece. A big fan of Margolles’ work (and deeply interested in her background in forensic medicine).
A significant portion of Margolles' oeuvre involves the use of materials sourced from morgues and sites of violence, such as water used to cleanse corpses, blood, and other bodily substances. By incorporating these elements into her installations and performances, she creates visceral experiences that compel viewers to confront the often unseen consequences of systemic violence and marginalization— which is deeply important.
☞ DERRIDA, SPECTRES OF MARX: THE STATE OF DEBT, THE WORK MOURNING AND THE NEW INTERNATIONAL: Another hauntological classic that is treasured on my bookshelf.
♪ LISTENING TO:
The Cook, The Thief His Wife and Her Lover, Peter Greenway score, specifically ‘Memorial’ by Michael Nyman–– For a while I envisioned being carried in my coffin at my own funerary procession to this song, though now I imagine it as my walking down the aisle song <3. It is over the top in a kitschy dramatic way, while also feeling sombre and fleshy. I’m obsessed with the high draw and richness of this film, and Greenway’s protention and aesthetic exuberance which is somewhat contextualised by his background as a Dutch vanitas painter, alongside Nyman’s dramatic and depressing score.
Koyaanisquatsi, Phillip Glass (1982). A classic— equally pretentious, and fits into a sub category of music I wish to buried to.
Britney Spears, Blackout (2007). She contains multitudes— not to be discounted alongside the likes of Nyman and Glass, as poetic genius (equally church-like perhaps, as Spears has become a true saint of our society, elucidated by her almost religious delirium, perpetual spinning and devotion to unknown causes).
☠ HATES:
Male directors thinking they’ve slayed feminism
Police sirens (sirens of the sea, allowed)
Polyamory is kind of having a flop right now, monogamy and undying devotion is kind of hot
Spiritual psychosis/ woke spirituality, Tik tok tarot etc.— crystals had their moment, now the real tea is self awareness (and psychoanalysis?) though preserving the mysteries of the occult, divination, prophetic visions and the art of (old school esoterica) tarot no less
Freud, bad vibes. Not a feminist. Obsessed with sex, but not in a chill way. Defines women or femininity by a sense of lack inferiority (penis envy), framining femininity as a deviation from masculinity— hate.
Guilty pleasure, also a bad vibe: pleasure should not be guilt ridden, the catholics overdid that.
Piety (it is fun to devote yourself to something, but never to God alone)
Urban Outfitters book section, not because I’m pretentious but because we don’t need another book on palm readings, girly pop-feminism, mindfulness or pop astrology/ psychology.
Thanks Isabella! Follow Isabella here!
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