preliminary note

i will first thank you for agreeing to participate in this investigation with me. do not be alarmed as reading this is enough of a participatory act. and reading all is not mandatory.
as i look for ways of engagement with others (who can be designated as audiences, if we’re evil) without enforcement, having started with the website (joanafran.co) which is satisfactory but disillusioning in its lack of appeal for many,
i reach this so-so newsletter.
i reluctantly designate it as such as i do not yet know what this can transform into, but know surely it is not a means to propagate any news of my part, besides those of discovery. but this is more of an elucidating of process than ‘a’ news. usually a newsletter has as its main motif informing an audience of future happenings. i intend to do the opposite, i am in need of chewing my produced, gathered information - so what i am to show you is what has already happened. it is a way to organize my searching, document it with means of making clear the paths i walk in, and continuing thinking with more consolidated clarity. you can see these letters as a research journal if you’d like, but we will see what comes from it.
the best way to see clearly is to place what is to be seen outside of your head, as this you can’t reach with the eyes. i invite you to chew the process with me.

note: sometimes these will be text-heavy, other times not. i do not expect all of you to bear this patience. you have my permission to skip any parts you find boring.

orange text are excerpts from my in studio writing.

february 2026

dear every and one,

experiments from one of the first days in the studio, with my mother's very used red stockings. on some sort of otherness.

ive been working with resistance and its tensions. somatic refusals brought on by little bits of days that leave me uneasy and mark my borders, and materials which hold, are to be filled and occupied.

wanting to define these borders, so to surpass them, i search for space of mine (yours) and ask it if i am allowed to move within it.

i keep reaching the conclusion that taking a walk is the best example of my practice. walking itself is the motivation to keep walking. when i walk i am not still.
the most arduous moment is to begin the walk. to go from stillness to movement. because i tend to compartmentalize each action in of itself (in practicality) it becomes difficult to enter them, and treat the transition of one action (being still is an action as well) to the other.
this arduous moment (poor me) is one i elongate. it naturally makes time slower, the moment you curse yourself for not moving gives you enough time to finish the bad words. but in order to not be so bad towards myself, i began paying attention to this:

body resists leaving the house. there is a bus soon, to go to the studio. i start thinking of what motivated me to go; lots to do, lots to think - there is no lack of time occupying action; i think of it all at once and feel a force pulling my body down. i keep sitting, and feel this force.

it is really as multiple arrows attaching my body to the couch. a lot of weight. it almost forces me to dilute. so i write in an attempt to not think of what i will do, but of what i must do, in order to do it.

04/02/2026

from a recording of me playing with a wine box and the cover from the couch of my childhood home. reaching conclusions over resistance and gravity, and how they push us still.

lined wood box with the same fabric as above; working title, self-portrait after mother's passing.

many considerations over the part and the whole, the singular and the collective. how to remain one without closed borders, how to remain one and not be engulfed into the other(s).

never be a target audience,
never be susceptible to publicity,
never speak with the intention of robbing someone of their beliefs
always be open to change.

11/02/2026

Giorgio Agamben, The Coming Community p.27, 1990

i then search for a multiple singularity of sorts, and play around with these words that won’t leave my head, i am you you are me. they ask for some multiple interpretation, because if they are received literally, then i am denying myself of space and robbing you of yours.

20x25cm, experiments with wood primer mixed with natural pigments, and the outline of the inside of my hands.

i’ve grown post-political. i agree with Jean-Luc Nancy when he spoke of philosophy being realized with the end of politics. the point has gone beyond politics, swam closer to the study of being (ontology). how will a whole work if its parts are not admitting to be parts, ignoring that in themselves that gives them potential to be in the first place. to then move, inter(act), help, smile, vote, be political through their admitted and lived agency.

there is something irreducible. there is a relational unity i am certain of, call it faith or art, it is the same. there is only one absolute (to try to reach it is silly), it engulfs all relationally (we can reach its parts),
i can only touch myself through you, but for this to be possible, we both need to consider our singularity. no intentions to step on your shoes, i mean.

The sin in me says 'I'.
I am all. But this particular 'I' is God. And it is not an 'I'. Evil makes distinctions, it prevents God from being equivalent to all.
It is because of my wretchedness that I am 'I'. It is on account of the wretchedness of the universe that, in a sense, God is 'I' (that is to say a person).

Simone Weil, The Self, 1942-43

sometimes i speak words meaning the opposite, and expect of the other to not understand what i say but what i mean. this putting themselves in my shoes, as if i admittedly lied and said i own theirs.
then i leave it to them to persecute me, with the responsibility i remove from me to add to them. but my shoes are mine, unless i gift them, a conscious act of resolution (a false act). it is about seeing the shoes, if we speak about the possible. this a photograph can do, and your eyes do. i ask you, do you want to see my shoes? and i show them to you, i take them off my socks and hold them to your eye. you can hold them, and i think you should. but please do not wear them, as yours won’t fit mine. there is no more to want than shoes not yours. if wanting is a sin.
but sin is inappropriate, the term. sin is not, disadvantage, instead call it ‘asking for forgiveness’
and i sin because i can not wear your shoes, i force this with a violent act - believing i can. i steal you from you when i tell the lie, i am you. for the concepts are not finite, and not to be defined as you and i. aggressive terms, escapes to inside spaces, not neutral.
i am not i as you are not you. and you frown, but you smell what you smell and i touch what i touch, and i give to you my sweat as you give me your hand, and we join in sin.

24/02/2026

filling in the gaps

i stood up in front of a piece of wood, outlined the space between my legs on it, carved it out (we use the word tico-tico for a wood saw); a materialization of this empty, not so empty space which i then occupied, within my legs. this materialized space became an object of itself, functions as a filling-in tool for my bodily gaps.
around these wooden objects, there are videos, photographs, drawings and text. all of which function together as one piece. to present it is a challenge i hope to tackle through the timely process of writing these letters. so if things aren’t clear, its not on purpose but its not a fault either.

you can find the video part of the piece here.

the space between my legs, wood.

how to relate to you i think is how to relate to me.
so i try to see me from outside (you). a common ground. common ground is an object, so you stand parallel i can stand parallel,
but i see not at the same time (simultaneously). there is no i you can show me, and i am not to go looking, unless revealed. give me one i’ll give you two. to trace my hand is not to trace yours, but i trace my hand and you trace yours, but only if you’d like, as i can not force you to it.
there is need in needing, i’ve written. need seeing myself from outside (you), as if you were outside and not inside. we forget the danger of the terms. if they are than we are not, as we can not be in and out. or we are, but the terms defy. they make reality (lived experience) impossible. and if reality is impossible then we are as well. depression is living out in the in and in in the out. feeling of unease, as unease entering a room. feeling i am not to be in when it is mine, ours. unease, not feeling some belonging to the ground we stand on, and, as we can not levitate we pretend - ignore contact with the floor, not seeing ourselves reflected (being two is being with your second outline). then i lie when i say i am two, i become multiple.
there is need in needing. to be you so i can touch myself.
i think i am getting a rash below my right thumb.
in touch through the in. sensing form. giving myself shape.
form holds shape within it, but shape is an incapable being, it is reduced to form. unjust. and we see form only through shape. so it is just, to keep the eyes closed at times, to let your organs feel themselves.
swimming is sensing your form, bathing. engulfed, wrapped, and confirming you with your hands rubbing the skin. as when an animal cleans their back, you lean on a wall.
walls get no justice. there is never just one wall. there is never just one i.
i am two, counting with you, four with our reflections.

24/02/2026