The Gropius Bau invites you to an evening of reading and conversation with Los Angeles-based writer-artist Harry Dodge and Los Angeles and Berlin-based writer-artist-musician Johanna Hedva.

Harry Dodge will read from his 2020 book, My Meteorite: Or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing, and then talk writing, time travel, pattern and coincidence with Johanna Hedva, author of the recently released novel Your Love Is Not Good. Their conversation will be followed by a Q&A.

American writer and visual artist Harry Dodge’s recent book of literary non-fiction, My Meteorite: or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing, which has been described as “brilliant”, “exhilarating” and a “high-pressure, poetic approach to narrative and language”, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Dodge’s sculpture, drawing and video work have been exhibited at venues nationally and internationally; his solo and collaborative work is held in numerous institutions including Museum of Modern Art, New York and his writing has appeared in publications including Art Forum, The Paris Review and Harper’s. In 2017, Dodge was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. In the early 90s, Dodge co-founded now-legendary, community-based performance space, The Bearded Lady, which served as a touchstone for a pioneering, queer, DIY literary and arts scene in San Francisco. In the latter part of the 90s, Dodge co-wrote, directed, edited and starred in an award-winning feature film, By Hook or By Crook, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002. Dodge lives in Los Angeles with his partner, writer Maggie Nelson, and their family. He holds an MFA from Bard College and teaches at California Institute of the Arts.

Johanna Hedva (they/them) is a Korean-American writer, artist and musician, who was raised in Los Angeles by a family of witches, and now lives in LA and Berlin. Hedva is the author of the novels Your Love Is Not Good, which Kirkus called “fear-less, hell-raising, and resplendent – a must-read”, and On Hell, which was named one of Dennis Cooper’s favorites of 2018. They are also the author of Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain, a collection of poems, performances and essays; and in 2024, they will publish the essay collection, How To Tell When We Will Die: Essays on Sickness, Fate, and Doom. Their album Black Moon Lilith in Pisces in the 4th House, a doom-metal guitar and voice performance influenced by Korean shamanist ritual, was released in January 2021, and their 2019 album The Sun and the Moon had two of its tracks played on the moon. Their work has been shown in Berlin at the Gropius Bau, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry; The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London; Performance Space New York; Gyeongnam Art Museum in South Korea; the LA Architecture and Design Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon; and in the transmediale, Unsound and Rewire festivals. Their writing has appeared in Triple Canopy, frieze, Mousse, The White Review, Topical Cream, Spike, and is anthologised in Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art. Their essay Sick Woman Theory, published in 2016, has been translated into 11 languages.