THE GENTLEST WORK
A queer myth in pieces
This digital installation was originally made available in June 2021. While we search for a permanent home on a bespoke site, we have decided to make the installation available for anyone who wants to revisit it in exchange for a donation of your choosing.
Donate here, and access the installation here.
About The Gentlest Work
The installation explores the queer possibilities of the House of Atreus, a family in Greek myth who can’t seem to stop killing each other. Rather than one definitive retelling, we offer dozens of fragments you can follow in your own journey through their world and ours. Through it we searched for ways trauma can be settled, and joy found.
The pieces on offer were gathered from scripts for performances that never were, transformed into new short films and audio clips, or else left as words alone. Much of the installation was made during Covid-19 lockdowns, with our artists scattered around the UK and further afield. In many ways, the installation is about seeking out meaning in a time when we were all isolated, left to wonder who we were now and what our futures might be. And in many ways, this isolation, this uncertainty about the future, this self-doubt is exactly what our characters face.The Gentlest Work was made possible by grants from Arts Council England, the Open University, the Louis M. Rabinowitz Foundation, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, the Institute of Classical Studies, and the Society for Classical Studies.