S2 Ep 05: Lynne DeSilva-Johnson (Evolution, Systems, & Trauma)

The Lit Fantastic Podcast

Lynne DeSilva-Johnson (they/them) is a nonbinary queer interdisciplinary creator, cultural scholar, and educator. Lynne is the founder and creative director of The Operating System, a radical open source arts organization, online platform, and publisher. Prior to teaching at Pratt, they were an adjunct in the CUNY system for 10 years, as well as a teaching artist for myriad organizations and schools, working in classrooms with K-12 through adult learners. Alongside their work in the education sector, Lynne has worked for two decades to help build programming, curriculum, publications, design, identity, and infrastructure for local nonprofits as well as independent arts and education oriented small businesses. They are an independent curator and host of a wide range of exhibitions, panels, performances, and workshops, collaborating with a wide range of practitioners, organizations and venues. Recent publication credits and interviews include Wave Composition, The Conversant, The Philadelphia Supplement, Gorgon Poetics, POSTblank, Vintage Magazine, Live Mag, Coldfront, the Brooklyn Poets Anthology, Resist Much/Obey Little: Poems for The Resistance, and In Memory of Feasible Grace,� part of the Panthalassa Pamphlet series, among others. Their performances and work have appeared widely, including recent features or projects at Spoonbill Books, Open Source Gallery, Artists Space, Bowery Arts and Science, The NYC Poetry Festival, Parkside Lounge, Carmine Street Metrics, Eyebeam, LaMaMa, Happy Lucky No.1, Triangle Quarterly, Undercurrent Projects, Mellow Pages, The New York Public Library, Launchpad BK, Dixon Place, Poets Settlement, SOHO20 Gallery and many more. Current projects include a hybrid poetics / research project around evolving system ecologies, the Building Interpersonal Infrastructures series, and a multimedia text-performance project around the somatic manifestations of trauma. They are always still beginning.