the woman factory – ava hofmann – the os, 2020

i’m wary of sharing even this^^ much of a project whose surprising//mimetic challenges are much the point. the woman factory, like so much of hofmann’s work, demands you take back any time you’ve called any object, living or otherwise, enigma. save your assessments for her code and perhaps recognize how most of what we toss into the soup as puzzling & unknowable are just those lives which are seen, which we force into view. while some may disappear into expectation or trope, this poet asks every question of herself. you leave the woman factory knowing more about ava, sure. but you’re doing it all wrong if you don’t sit with yourself after, in the discomfort & realize that, just like her, you’ve been hiding you behind yourself all this time.