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What happens to an artistic practice in protected solitude? What does writing sound like when time, attention and place lead the way? During her residency at LjurhallaFabriken, Ali Millar has been developing a hybrid biography of Louise Bourgeois, built from Bourgeois’ lesser-known writings and Millar’s own readings. As part of Textival's ongoing program Ruiner / Flagor, Micke Brittah meets Ali for a conversation about how the residency shaped her writing, who Bourgeois becomes here and now, and what unfolds when attention is allowed to rest with the text. We move through fragments, memory and voices, with the text as our compass. Warm, practical clothing recommended; fika will be served (please share any dietary requirements).
Ali Millar, born in Edinburgh and raised in the Scottish Borders is the critically acclaimed author of Ava Anna Ada (White Rabbit, 2024) and The Last Days (PRH, 2022). Working across non-fiction, fiction and screen, her work is characterised by a sustained preoccupation with the effect and expression of memory, imagined futures and the proliferation of apocalyptic narratives. Often deploying a horror lens, she uses the natural world as a mechanism to examine ideas of humanity, resistance and adaptation in the climate catastrophe. In 2022, The Scotsman named her a Scottish Artist to Watch.
During her residency, Ali will work on a hybrid biography of Louise Bourgeois, piecing together her less public written work to create a portrait of one of the 20th century’s most compelling female artists.
LjurhallaFabriken is a non-profit organisation and meeting place for cross-disciplinary collaboration and exchange, within the rural context of Ornunga, Vårgårda municipality. The site, which encompasses a 1930s factory, adjacent outbuildings and surrounding forest, has undergone significant renovation to become a dynamic infrastructure that supports a diversity of artistic practices, workshops, exhibitions, residencies and resource sharing.
Micke Brittah is a Gothenburg-based writer, poet, and moderator with a background in engineering physics and a BA in Literary Composition from HDK-Valand. Working across poetry, essay, and public conversation, their work is marked by a sustained attention to history and embodiment—alongside an interest in archives, decay, and queer, multilingual practices. Their texts appear in several anthologies and magazines. Currently, Micke is writing a historical poetic epic about labour, responsibility, and asylum at the Falun copper mine, and regularly designs and leads workshops on queer writing. As part of Ruiner / Flagor, Micke moderates the conversation with Ali Millar
This event is part of Textival’s programme series Ruiner / Flagor. The series explores disorientation, unease, anger, place, context, movement, struggle, and the body, through social, political, ethical, existential, aesthetic, somatic, and geographical perspectives.
Thank you to Kulturförvaltningen Västra Götalands Region for supporting the residency and event.