Johanna Hedva

so it’s been about a month since the launch of How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom, and the vibe is huge gratitude for how cunt we all are together and continue to be, get her at your favorite independent bookstore, request her at your local library, let’s keep going, thank you everyone, ilysm 💋 ⁣ ⁣ 1) new author photo by @caca_santoro custom fit by @artisan_acby @samacby ⁣ 2) excerpt: “I bring doom into the conversation to show that it is a place to begin, not to end. Once I started thinking of doom as liberatory, I felt free from the dread it constitutes when it looms in the future. How many of us have already met our doom and then had to get out of bed and go on? How many groups of people have had their worlds end, keep ending, and still they found ways to cook for each other? How privileged are you if you first require hope in order to act? What about those where hope was a luxury they couldn’t afford, and still they wrote books, they made music, they sang? They keep singing.”⁣ ⁣ 3) couldn’t have done this without the realest real one @lenawaithe ⁣ 4) hair by @tressesbytramel ⁣ 5) let’s gooooooo⁣ ⁣ ID in alt text⁣

it’s been a week since my 4th book, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom, has been in the world. thank you everyone who’s joining the crip party. thank you to the exquisite @clare.mao and @caolinn & to my superb publishers @hillmangrad and @zandoprojects ⁣⁣ come celebrate with me next week on October 9 in LA for the official launch with @lenawaithe and @thestackspod 🔥 tickets at link in bio.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ this new big pink one joins my three others: On Hell (2018), Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain (2020), Your Love Is Not Good (2023). what a cuteness of cunts, a murder of crows, an intrusion of cockroaches, a piteousness of doves.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ this book took ten years to write, and the fact that it’s coming into the world when the genocidal engine of imperial power is churning at an even more brutalizing pace is, although it can feel like it, not a fluke, not a cognitive dissonance. this conundrum is exactly what the book is about: paradoxical moments of community, joy, and survival happen alongside genocide, bombing, and the unmeasurable daily grief and pain committed by state power. america and israel and its allies are simply continuing what they have always done. so—we will too. we will keep resisting, keep caring for each other, keep fighting. i’ve added new links and fundraisers to my linktree, and will continue to do so in stories. please donate, share, support how and when you can.⁣⁣ ⁣ photo of me by @lyntontalbot ⁣⁣ [id1: hedva squats over their four books, which are on the floor in a line. hedva wears all black with rick owens kiss platforms that make their legs look like a satyr’s. they flip the bird.⁣]⁣ ⁣⁣ [id2: a quote from alice walker: “because whatever has happened to humanity, whatever is currently happening to humanity, it is happening to all of us. no matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world.” —Alice Walker⁣, posted on Black Liturgies]⁣ ⁣⁣ [id3: a screenshot of the Crips for e-Sims in Gaza fundraiser which has raised $1,265,392 CAD so far, fuck yes!⁣]⁣ ⁣⁣ [id4: a screenshot of the Solidarity with the Camps fundraiser which has raised 11,013 EUR so far, let’s go!]

my novel is out today do you wanna get your hands on it 🫴 & also come see me talk about it in person 👄 LA ur first @skylightbooks this wednesday may 24, & then: may 26 SF @greenapplebooks may 30 portland @corporealwriting june 1 seattle @thirdplacebooks june 6 NYC @amant.arts june 23 berlin june 29 ljubljana + more dates soon once i don’t feel so overwhelmed all events start at 7pm local time, venue and access info at link in bio [video description: Hedva’s hands in black leather gloves rub the hardcover copy of their novel, Your Love Is Not Good, which has a snot-yellow cover with a black and white photo of a dog and an author photo of Hedva looking hilariously monarchical on the back.]

i can’t articulate how much bob flanagan and sheree rose mean to me. this saturday, may 16, all of us sick freaks who love them so will gather @humanresourcesla to celebrate the 30th anniversary of bob’s passing and the continuing gorgeously lived life of sheree rose @msrosebush 🌹 it’s a marathon reading from 12-7pm PST, you can join in person or with livestream. ⁣info at link in bio.⁣ ⁣⁣ i go on around 6pm-ish, and i’ll be reading the introduction i wrote last year to the reissue of “Fuck Journal” for @hanumaneds . being invited to write the intro for one of the most important books of all time, which contains i think my actual favorite sentence of all time—here i am being really sentimental but—it was the highlight of my career.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ crip bestie & comrade @ezrabenus kept this gift going when he showed me an original edition of fuck journal that’s in his collection—and signed with bob’s actual blood—and i got to hold it in my actual hands.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ the event this saturday is made possible by the coolest people. come say hi. special leather thanks to the baddest baddie @swamp_witch__ ⁣⁣ ⁣ image descrips in alt text

wave of life: it’s my birthday in a few days, and also my mother’s death anniversary in the same week, so these days are always heavingly pelagic and weird, but yesterday i learned that my book, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom, has earned out, which means i will now receive royalties. i learned that the amount of copies sold is in the five figures. ⁣ ⁣ holy fuck. ⁣ ⁣ i need to just take a minute. like, this is a 400-page unruly essay collection on disability—that reveled in complexity, messiness, abundance, nuance, sexiness, strangeness, pain, and fun—that refused to reduce disability down to a single story, but insisted that it could be a vast and rich literary subject that could manifest and manifold into limitless meanings—and it took me more than a decade to get into the world. ⁣ ⁣ also: it did not get ONE review. not one. which means that it’s found its way through the world solely in the hands of readers, by crip sick queer freaky geniuses passing it to their friends.⁣ ⁣ yall are so cute; you know how to make an ancient limping hag feel cunt on their birthday. i feel lucky to be writing with, alongside, for, and because of you. i could not have done this without each of you and forgive my sentimentality but i can feel in my whole being the time and attention you’ve given this book, and it feels amazing. endless love to my agent @clare.mao and my editor @caolinn for being part of the coven. we did it.⁣ ⁣ [id: hedva is on their crip fam bestie’s rooftop in libra light (sunset) to celebrate their birthday. it’s the scorpio full moon in their house of illness and they are drinking champagne.]

Johanna Hedva's 'Failed Poet: New and Early Video Works' continues this week at TINA! Johanna Hedva the vanity of amnesia keeps me young, 2026 Single channel video, an excerpt from The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson 5 minutes 4 seconds Edition of 3 + 2APs Made in 2026, by candlelight. The text is from the 'lotus-eaters' excerpt from The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson, in the first translation by a woman which was published only in 2017. The sound is Hedva’s 2022 'Scream Demo,' a vocal piece recorded in Hedva’s apartment during lockdown. ‘Scream Demo’ demonstrates Hedva’s methodology of swinging between the antipodal styles of opera and P’ansori, pushing into the possibility of vocal cord damage. In making this edge legible, and sometimes taking the body beyond it with all the attendant possibility of failure, Hedva invokes an inversion of normative Western values around what a voice should, and should not, sound like. #johannahedva @bighedva

rehearsal @mahlerlewitt ⁣ ⁣ in anna mahler’s music room where her stone sculptures—and her mother, alma’s, piano—are watching over me and the new album. for the andrew mangold music residency with @george.r.miller at casa mahler, spoleto.⁣ ⁣ live performances soon ⁣ ⁣ 🎹 👻 🕯️⁣ ⁣ [id: hedva is in an old stone house in italy, sitting on the bench of alma mahler’s piano. they are wearing a black sweatshirt and playing a parlor acoustic guitar. behind them on a high shelf is a row of stone busts sculpted by anna mahler.]

Johanna Hedva ‘Failed Poet: New and Early Video Works’ opens tonight from 6-8pm! See you here then! #johannahedva @bighedva

Do not miss! Next week Johanna Hedva ‘Failed Poet: New and Early Video Works’ opens at TINA! PV Thursday 2 April 6 - 8pm! See you here, then. #johannahedva @bighedva

Next up at TINA! Johanna Hedva ‘Failed Poet: New and Early Video Works’ PV Thursday 2 April 6 - 8pm ‘Failed Poet: New and Early Video Works’ marks Johanna Hedva’s return to TINA, bringing together eight early videos (2013–2020) with a new work, ‘The Vanity of Amnesia Keeps Me Young’ (2026). At its centre is ‘Failed Poet’ (2015), a trilogy that Hedva describes as 'the hinge door' that flew open their engagement with video at all. Conceived as a loose, non-hierarchical survey, the exhibition revisits the formative works that established Hedva’s moving-image language, at once intimate, mercurial, and possessed by voice, body and text. Not so much a retrospective, ‘Failed Poet...’ is a spatialised archive where works are encountered across screens, projections and sound, at varying scales and proximities. ‘Failed Poet...’ offers both a return and a reintroduction. Early works, often less widely seen, are brought into the present as a collective gesture, letting the work build, layer, and spill beyond itself. The result is a cacophony of images, voices and rhythms that resists singular readings in favour of accumulation and encounter. Johanna Hedva (b. 1984, Los Angeles, CA, USA; lives and works in LA, USA and Berlin, Germany) is a contemporary artist, writer, and musician. Across visual art, performance, critical writing, fiction and music, their work deals with ecstasy as much as abjection; erotics as much as disintegration; death, illness, and disability, as much as mysticism, ritual, and political activism. They were included in Art Review’s 2025 power 100 list and their 2024 exhibition at TINA, London was selected as one of Art Forum's best shows of 2025. They are also a recipient of the 2026 United States Artist Fellowship awards. TINA is located on the first floor of 191 Wardour Street, London, W1F 8ZE. Unfortunately, there is no lift. The exhibition contains flashing images. Parking is a little tricky around Wardour Street so if you require parking assistance or if you have any other access requirements not listed here please be in touch Hana Noorali at the gallery. [email protected] ID in ALT text @bighedva #johannahedva

We are pleased to announced that artist Johanna Hedva and director George R. Miller have been awarded the Andrew Mangold music residency at Casa Mahler to develop a new work which will be premiered in fall 2026, and toured in 2027. They will join our Spring Session. The residency is organised in memory of composer and musician Andrew Mangold (1971-2021). The selection committee was led by Duval Timothy and Mathias Kawinek. Hedva is a Korean-American writer, artist and musician whose influential work questions how we encounter illness, disability, doom, and death. Hedva writes of the new work:      “The songs use melody, style, content, and structures I’ve never used before. They tell a story, beginning to end, that excavates themes of desire, power, pain, and fragility. It’s midnight. It sounds like a succubus singing folk songs. These are dominatrix blues. There are demons to be exorcised. Maybe I am the demon.⁣ The songs are blunt, wild, big—but they were written on a haunted acoustic parlor guitar, which is small, and can sound thin. The guitar is haunted. It disappeared for ten years and then returned.⁣⁣ What this requires of me to play is new: I’ve never sung this way before, never played this way before, and never been directed by a collaborator before. As new as all of this is, it is a natural development in my work as a musician, songwriter, performer. I am trying to devote myself to bringing this into the world the way it deserves, and this residency would allow me to do that in a total way.” The performance will be Hedva’s most ambitious to date and is developed in collaboration with the opera director George R. Miller. Miller has presented work at Carnegie Hall, Opera Philadelphia, The Juilliard School, REDCAT, Long Beach Opera, Opera Saratoga, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Pioneer Works, Pageant, and Wild Up among others.  Open Studio: Friday 17 April, 18.00, Spoleto Details tba, please email [email protected] to discuss access requirements. Photos 1&2: Hedva at HAU Theatre, Berlin. Photo: ink Agop, (C) Creamcake. Photo3 Ian Byers-Gamber @bighedva @george.r.miller @tinagallery___

11 Questions for Johanna Hedva, Writer, Artist, Musician, and 2026 USA Fellow. The questions are the same each time; the answers are as unique as each 2026 USA Fellow. To hear from other artists, visit unitedstatesartists.org and sign up for our newsletter. ___ [ID: 1. A black and white large-format film photograph of Johanna Hedva, a Korean American genderqueer person with long black hair. They are seated in a chair, resembling a throne, tossing their head back. They are wearing a black leather jacket and Rick Owens platform boots. Johanna Hedva author photo, 2023. Photo credit by Ian Byers-Gamber. Text reads: ‘11 Questions for Johanna Hedva.]