Join in for a performative book event with authors Lynne Sachs and Lizzie Olesker and actor/writer Jasmine Holloway celebrating the publication of Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry. Just published by punctum books, an independent queer- and scholar-led, community-formed publisher, Hand Book is a collection of writings and images that came out of a hybrid documentary performance and film made by Sachs and Olesker that was set within a neighborhood laundromat, a microcosm of service work within our city. With a focus on the people who wash and fold “drop-off” loads, Hand Book explores the convergence of dirt, stains, money, identity, and desire. This theatrical reading will include short essayistic pieces, a dramatic monologue and poetic dialogue distilled from real conversations with laundromat workers, against a backdrop of projected photographic images.The work will call to mind the intimacy of laundering other people’s clothes, almost like a second skin, the textural care for things kept close to the body.
