Theorem
Our edges touched. Our stories abutted.
The same light struck us at different times.
When the body meets geometry meets the world’s edges, what uncertainties emerge? Theorem is both question and answer, proposition and proof. Accompanied by luminescent images that complicate and dissect the speaker’s voice, this collaboration is a glorious meditation on what it means to hold secrets across time and space.
Praise for Theorem
Theorem is a radiant example of how we do not go to art for information or even knowledge, but to rock back on our heels before something fully itself, something real and full of wonder, despite its careful elisions of detail.
Han VanderHart, EcoTheo Review
The saturated page makes me feel like I’ve just finished a long walk… Bradfield’s recollection of time and Contro’s smart drawings propel readers into a contemplation of the self. I found myself sighing, stopping and reflecting, radiating, and by the end of it, I felt—most importantly—at ease.
S. Nicole Lane, Chicago Reader
Entering the pages of Theorem, its risky business of collaboration, where the lyrical reaches of language alternate with the curious powers of visual art, one delights (and delights, and delights), in the book’s mystery and control; its structure and freedom; an extended, five-section exercise in restraint, simplicity, and the open-ended investigation of the self.
Kirsten Andersen, Provincetown Arts, 2020
Books about self-discovery often culminate in a revelation, which readers may find temporarily satisfying. But what happens after that? In Theorem, Bradfield’s words and Contro’s images open up another possibility. The revelation is not in arrive at a destination but in beginning to map the journey, as well as in recognizing that one’s perspective of past events changes as time goes by. This is the enigma of being alive and alert. This is what Theorem offers the willing reader—a place to return to in order to set out again and see what has changed.
John Yau, Poet, critic, curator
Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of the poetry collections Once Removed, Approaching Ice, Interpretive Work, and the mixed-genre Toward Antarctica, which pairs her photographs with brief, hybrid essays. Her poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Orion, and many anthologies. She has been awarded a Stegner Fellowship, the Audre Lorde Prize, and was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Founder and editor-in-chief of Broadsided Press, she works as a naturalist and teaches creative writing at Brandeis University. www.ebradfield.com
Antonia Contro is a visual artist whose work ranges from discrete objects to site-specific installations and collaborations that engage artists and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines. Her art explores the nature of knowledge, memory, and time. Contro’s exhibitions include Tempus Fugit at the American Philosophical Society Museum, Ex Libris at the Chicago Cultural Center, Closed|Open at the Newberry Library, and Descry at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Contro’s work is in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, Block Museum, Harvard Art Museums, and Museum of Contemporary Art. Contro was a awarded a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, an Illinois Arts Council fellowship, and a doctorate in humanities honoris causa from Lewis University. www.antoniacontro.com
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