Serpentine Cinema presents Paul B. Preciado‘s Orlando, My Political Biography, accompanied by a conversation between Paul B. Preciado and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine.
In 1928, Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando: A Biography, the first novel in which the main character changes sex in the middle of the story. A century later, philosopher, trans activist and filmmaker, Paul B. Preciado, sends a letter to Woolf in Orlando, My Political Biography. Blurring the lines between reality and fiction, Preciado reflects on how Woolf’s fictional character, Orlando, has transcended literature to become reality. Preciado explores the transformation of Orlando’s body as a symbol that resonates with trans and non-binary individuals worldwide.
“Every Orlando,” Preciado says, “is a transgender person who is risking his, her or their life on a daily basis as they find themselves forced to confront government laws, history and psychiatry, as well as traditional notions of the family and the power of multinational pharmaceutical companies.”
The screening will be accompanied by a conversation between Paul B. Preciado and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine.
Presented in collaboration with Institut Français du Royaume-Uni.
BSL interpretation is available on request for all our programmes. Please get in touch at information@serpentinegalleries.org if you would like to request this.
Curated by Kostas Stasinopoulos, Curator, Live Programmes, Serpentine; Diane Gabrysiak, Head of Programming and Exhibition, Institut Français du Royaume-Uni; Daisy Gould, Assistant Curator, Live Programmes, Serpentine and Eva Speight, Curatorial Assistant, Live Programmes, Serpentine.
Production Coordinator: Isobel Peyton Jones
ARTIST BIO
- About Paul B. Preciado
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Paul B. Preciado is a writer, philosopher, curator, filmmaker and one of the leading thinkers in the study of gender and body politics. He has served as the Curator of Public Programs of documenta 14 (Kassel/Athens), Curator of the Taiwan Pavilion in Venice (2019), Head of Research of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA). He previously taught Philosophy of the Body and Transfeminist Theory at Université Paris VIII-Saint Denis and at New York University. His books, Counter-sexual Manifesto (Columbia University Press, 2000); Testo Junkie (The Feminist Press, 2008); Pornotopia (Zone Books, 2014); An Apartment in Uranus (Semiotexte and Fitzcarraldo, 2019), and Can the monster speak? (Semiotexte and Fitzcarraldo, 2021) are a key reference to queer, trans and non-binary contemporary art and activism. His last book, Dysphoria Mundi was published in France and Spain in 2022 (Grasset and Anagrama) and will be published in English by Graywolf and Fitzcarraldo in 2024. His first film, Orlando, My Political Biography was awarded four prizes at the Berlinale in 2023, including Special Prize of the Jury for Best Documentary and the Teddy Award for best LGBT documentary. He was born in Spain and lives in Paris.
