Kathy Acker’s final published text, Eurydice in the Underworld, harnesses the Greek mythology of the heroic trip to hell; refocusing the story’s centre away from the male hero and onto the dead girl, who has been murdered by a snake. Similarly, Ecco the Dolphin has lost their pod and must (like Eurydice, Orpheus and so on) travel deep beneath both time and space to rescue their missing and possibly dead kin.

In times of climate crisis, hell – the realm of the dead, the scorching, the boiling, the rotting – is also situated at the sea, as waters heat, melt and rise. This way is very hard, but not insoluble sees Linda Stupart and Carl Gent in residence, populating the underground space at KELDER with the props, costumes, images and texts that form parts of All Us Girls Have Been Dead for So Long, a low-fi musical extravaganza commissioned by the ICA that flows between beach and underworld, prehistory and near-future. This built environment will also play host to live events hosted throughout the residency period.

2 October 2021 – 29 January 2022
Thurs – Sat, 12-5pm
KELDER, Basement of Mercer & Co, 26A Chapel Market, Islington, London N1 9EN

KELDER