For trans 49, let us turn to the left and plunge our feet into the evil, the fragile, the foolish, the useless, the leftover, the alternative – the other side. Turning left can be difficult. Traffic moves at a pace you can’t control. It takes waiting for the right moment, it implies being vulnerable and picking up speed, it means looking both ways and being sure of this direction, committing to a new path. Some think this is extreme, others think it’s as simple as leaning in.
What derives from the Old English «lyft» is widely considered an objective term for orientation. But leaning in means using the side of the body that has been more unknown. The lyft, the weaker? Or just the unfamiliar, the weird, or the wicked? Who is to say what is deviant and what is straight?
Through my left eye I gain half my vision but if I close my right, I can actually see more. I look at familiar stories from a different perspective. Left-eyed, I notice things that I’ve never seen before: What have I been missing that has been there in plain sight? What else do I need my left eye to see?
Does turning to the left mean being leftist? The left side gives me strength, lets us question authorities, shows us joyful alternatives. Searching for leftist futures and thinking of ephemeral pasts – are those sitting on the left still advocating for a more radical change?
And, ultimately, what will I leave behind? As the past tense of leave, left points to what stays. Traceable footprints in the physical world and beyond – once appearing to be temporary but what will happen now to these leftovers?
Left is many directions – what is Left of you? What is Left to you?
Contributors
maia arson crimew, Arnaud Bostelmann, Matthias Brücke, Lukas Burger, Xixi Chen, Selin Doğaner, Helga Fassbinder, Thomas Flores, Maria Gisler, Dennis Häusler, Julius Henkel, Taewoo Kim, Elisaveta Maria Kriman, Nicole Leuthold, Pierre Marmy, Morgane A. Martin-Alonzo, Mathew McDiarmid, Shu Meng, Ramin Mosayebi, Janna Muff, Elias Nafaa, Mathias Palazzi, Elon Esra Rachamin, Giacomo Rossi, Mona Siessegger, Claudio Schneider, Shirley Surya, Salmo Suyo, Chloe Tsui, Michaela Türtscher
Editors
Charlotte Arn, Burak Alp Kaya, Alexandra Lyn, Simon Zimmermann
Table of content
Beyond Left and Right: Meanders, Sediments, and Urban Imaginaries
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Traces in Moving Land
Ein Gespräch mit Claudio Schneider und Michaela Türtscher
High Wall, Residual Hum
LEFT What Remains
Rauchfangkehrergasse 26, 1150 Wien
A Conversation with Shirley Surya
Left of Target
A Portrait of a New Soviet Woman
Where We Once Lived: Left-Behind Homes of 20th Century China
No Spaces Left: The Death of Zurich‘s Nightclubs
On Leftism & Architecture
«Left Wing Model»
What’s Left: Ephemerality, Erasure, and Queer Collectivity
Ein Gespräch mit Helga Fassbinder
Authority without Authority: Hacking the Freie Universität Berlin
Anatomy of a Room
A Conversation with maia arson crimew
The Art of Rendering Leftovers
The Left Hand of Carbon
With Root and Branch: Wooden Leftovers in the Black Forest
Wie wir die Welt verlassen