A Look Back at Elise Legal's Residency at Aperto
Between January and April 2026, artist Elise Legal was in residence at Aperto. Drawing on literary and political sources, the artist used this research period to refine and develop a rich body of thought on the powers and limitations of poetry today.
Following in the footsteps of the anarchist poet Sean Bonney, Elise Legal reaffirmed the agency of poetry: the importance of defining one’s enemies, of conceiving of poetry as a literary space for thinking about refusal, and of engaging with the concepts of address and translation. The poems thus served as a means of preserving emotions that were meant to be suppressed, “because we live within structures shaped by profit,” in the words of author Audre Lorde. Inspired by the collective dimension of writing, Elise Legal invited other artists to participate in an evening of public readings held on Wednesday, March 28, as well as in a closing event for her residency on April 15. On June 2, 2026, Elise Legal and Fanny Taillandier were guests on the second episode of Radio Aperto.
