Author Description

Ghost Calls is a new book published as part of Emma Talbot\x27s exhibition Ghost Calls at Dundee Contemporary Arts in winter 2021. It contains an introduction by DCA\x27s Director, Beth Bate, newly commissioned writing by Helen Charman and So Mayer, as well as a conversation between the artist and DCA\x27s Head of Exhibitions, Eoin Dara. Charman\x27s work Worm\-Talk recognises our separation through screens and windows, and the almost narcotic relief of online connection, against the backdrop of nature taking its dark, inevitable course, its \x26#34;grudging necromancy\x26#34;. Mayer\x27s Listen to the State of Us brings spectral bird\-like figures into a post\-pandemic society, with all of the references to viruses, vaccinations and mutations we recognise from 2020, along with a \x26#34;sky full of words\x26#34; and \x26#34;fabric we paint finely\x26#34; that connects us back into Talbot\x27s work, through mathematics and data, grain and skin. Finally, in their conversation together, Talbot and Dara talk about the development of the artist\x27s recent work, weaving together intimate details and observations with references to influential literary and poetic sources from Luce Irigaray to Diane di Prima.