Who determines what is remembered and commemorated, and why? How can we commemorate something that is both in the past and a daily reality? In Take 'Em Down, Simon(e) van Saarloos is inspired by the historically invisibilized lives of LGBT people and queers. They demonstrate the power of forgetting and wonder if and how it’s possible to live without a past. At the same time, Van Saarloos criticizes the way that a ‘white memory’—including their own—treats some stories as self-evident while other histories are erased. "Amidst a global pandemic that has fundamentally changed our world, along with Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Topple Monuments Movements and ongoing struggles for LGBTQIA liberation, Simon(e) van Saarloos' Take 'Em Down asks us to reenvision monuments and acts of commemoration. They also champion forms of Queer forgetting as acts of resistance. They call upon the work of some of the greatest thinkers, scholars and writers Arendt, Orwell, Halberstam, Rankine, Moten, Hartman and more to raise critical issues around memory, mourning and social justice. In this text Saarloos joins their ranks in creating important new visions and challenges for our world. It’s a text demanding to be contemplated and shared widely." Pamela Sneed, Author of Funeral Diva, City Lights 2020
Author
Simon(e) van Saarloos is a writer, artist and curator based between Berkeley, California and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They are the author of six books and have contributed to over more than thirty edited volumes, books, and journals. Van Saarloos is the author of Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto (Emily Carr University Press, 2023); Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (Publication Studio 2021) and Playing Monogamy (Publication Studio 2019) as well as several books in Dutch: Herdenken herdacht (Prometheus 2019); Enz. Het Wildersproces (Atlas Contact 2018); the novel De vrouw die (Nijgh & Van Ditmar 2016); the collection of columns Ik deug / deug niet (Nijgh & Van Ditmar 2015) and Het monogame drama (De Bezige Bij 2015). Van Saarloos also writes fiction. Recent productions include the short sci-fi story Dreamdead Surrender (Postmodern Culture Journal) and De Foetushemel, a theater play about abortion and violent resistance for Ulrike Quade Company. Van Saarloos works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations. Recent projects include the museum installation Cruising Gezi Park (Amsterdam Museum); The Asterisk Conversations podcast (Writers Unlimited); the short film “Apologies For Breaking In” at the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival 2021; curatorial project the spread of a mo(nu)ment (TAAK); International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam’s 2022 and 2023 queer programming Not Yet Yes and Contagious & Queer; the 2023 lecture and performance series Juicy Refuge at Rietveld Academy’s Studium Generale; The Non-Monogamy Letters with Indigenous STS scholar Kim TallBear at ArtsEverywhere.ca; a conversation on commemoration with Pamela Sneed and Claudia Rankine at UC Berkeley; the ABUNDANCE exhibition at Het HEM and the multi-year transnational queer community, nightlife and art project Through the Window. They have participated in artist residencies such as the KAVLI Institute for Nanosciences, Deltaworkers New Orleans and Be Mobile Create Together at IKSV in Istanbul. Van Saarloos taught theory and hosted writing workshops at AKV|St. Joost; the University of the Underground; KABK Den Haag; Theatre School Amsterdam; ArtEZ; University of Amsterdam; Utrecht University College; Erasmus School of Philosophy; ETH Zurich and as a PhD in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley.
