SJ Fowler - MUEUM launch

SJ Fowler

Steven J Fowler introduced his first novella MUEUM at Waterstones, Kingston on Wednesday 13th October 2022. MUEUM is a work of 'watchers and the watched, a testament to the fact that people are always more interesting—and far stranger—than things. [...] An essential artefact for our troubled times, proving that travel of the mind is always more powerful than the real thing.' (Chris McCabe)

Kayona Daley

Poets and writers from Writers' Kingston (Kingston University's literary cultural institute) joined with their own work, exploring museums and museum culture. With Kayona Daley, Martin Wakefield, Simon Tyrrell, Agnieszka Studzinka, Dominic Jaeckle, Julia Rose Lewis and Jessica Sequeira.

Martin Wakefield

Steven J Fowler's work has become known for its exploration of the potential of poetry, alongside collaboration, curation, asemic writing, sound poetry, concrete poetry, and performance. He was nominated for the White Review Short Story Prize, 2014, and his short stories have appeared in anthologies, such as Isabel Waidner’s edited collection, Liberating the Canon (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2018).

MUEUM is published by Tenement Press, and edited by Dominic Jaeckle, BUY IT HERE

Dominic Jaeckle

About MUEUM:
Suspended in unknowable time there is a city; in the city, an event, a conflict. Amid the ash, fog and cloud, there is the manufacturing of a space—a many-winged museum on the make. On the plinths, exquisite remnants of life present and past—adorning the walls, portraits of gentle torture sit hand in hand with brutal and statuesque portrayals of camaraderie—and the gift-shop is littered with plastic curios and gilt revulsion.

Goya, as atmosphere rather than artwork, hovers amid iron age ghosts, bronzed ideas, and antiqued anxiety.

Julia Rose Lewis

Pacing the hall, atrium and corridor, there are those who keep the museum—the various midwives to the building’s demands—and those, like the reader, who merely visit; those who pass through the vacant galleries adrift with questions. What can I touch? What is next to Egypt? What is hidden in Mesopotamia? Where do we eat? Drink? Where is the entrance? The exit?

Simon Tyrrell

Following the tradition of the Nestbeschmutzer authors (“one who dirties their own nest,” vis-à-vis Bernhard and Gombrowicz, et al), in Fowler’s curt, spiralling, and acute work, the museum’s keepers will answer..

Jessica Sequeira

Agnieszka Studzinka