テート・ギャラリーさんのインスタグラム写真 - (テート・ギャラリーInstagram)「Blake believed in the power of the imagination. John Varley – an artist, astrologer and close friend of Blake – reported in 1882 that Blake had a spiritual vision of a ghost of a flea and that 'This spirit visited his imagination in such a figure as he never anticipated in an insect.' While Blake was drawing the spirit, it told the artist that all fleas were inhabited by the souls of men who were 'by nature bloodthirsty to excess'. These bloodthirsty men were confined to the bodies of small insects, because if they were the size of horses, they would drink so much blood that most of the country would be depopulated. In the painting it holds a cup for blood-drinking and stares eagerly towards it. Blake’s combination of man and beast suggests a human character twisted by animalistic traits. In the spirit of imagination, for today's Queerate Tate submission @queeringspaceart have written a playful poem in response to the work, imagining an alternative queer origin story of the flea in Blake's painting and using the invented pronouns voh/vah. 'Voh came crashing down in a basket shaped spaceship with a few other comrades. On earth, the oxygen caused vah body to expand - vah fellow fleas have dispersed and now exist in every home. Multiplying, out of control, as if the world was hair. They are your children, your parents, your aunties, khalas, chachas, phuphos, sitos, jhidos, dadis, nanis, dadas, nanas, babas, and more. Voh is from nowhere and vah has the whole universe in vah basket; maybe it’s a dream. The belief is that this nowhere is where all us queers came from. And, the Ghost of the Flea protect.' Thanks to @queeringspaceart, @maq39 and @zulfikaralibhutto for your reading. Founded in 2018, Queering Space describe themselves as a critical and anti-racist collaborative initiative operating at the intersections of contemporary art, curation and research, with a focus on gender, sexuality, migration and decolonial feminisms.」2月26日 17時16分