Ideas of power exist in many forms. Power surrounds us; it infuses every relationship, and every system we come in contact with, but it is a notoriously slippery concept when considered in its own right. Power always seems to slip away when we look for it. Power is everywhere, but it is also always elsewhere. Power is a kind of dream in which we all participate.

The five artists taking part in Dream of Power approach their work from different positionalities, different media, and with radically diverse approaches. Often experimental, invariably challenging, and frequently infused with a leavening humour, the performers who comprise this event will provide points of orientation, however fleeting, as means of understanding, reckoning with, or simply asserting their voices within our common dream of the present.

The event will include new writing, live music, and conversation.

Susannah Dickey is a writer from Derry and the author of two novels - Tennis Lessons (2020) and Common Decency (2022). Her debut poetry collection, ISDAL, was published in 2023 and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

Carl Gent is an artist from Bexhill-on-sea, UK. Much of their work seeks to refictionalise the life of Cynethryth, eighth-century Queen of Mercia through a range of amateur dramatics, tabletop gaming, self-publishing cesspits and the parading of decapitated kings in community carnivals. Together with Kelechi Anucha they investigated the girly and divine links between folk and church song, and their ongoing collaborative practice with Linda Stupart has given birth to a range of live, published and exhibited restagings of the 1990s video game Ecco the Dolphin. Their latest pamphlet, The Balls of Alban, was published by Monitor Press in 2022, as was Felon Herb, a published iteration of their making-absinthe-as-art.

Lizzie Homersham is a writer and editor based in London. Her writing has been published in Artforum, Art Monthly, The Wire, Another Gaze, and elsewhere.

Antony Hurley is a folk musician and songwriter based in London. He released his debut album Quiet Rooms on Lanterne Records in 2022 and is currently working on his second album.

Rachael Allen is the author of Kingdomland and God Complex, both published by Faber. She was born in Cornwall and works as an editor and lecturer in London.

Habib William Kherbek is the writer of several works of fiction, including Ecology of Secrets (2013), ULTRALIFE (2016), Twenty Terrifying Tales from our Technofeudal Tomorrow (2021), all published by Arcadia Missa, and New Adventures (2020), Best Practices (2021), published by left gallery and Moist Books respectively. His poetry has been published by If A Leaf Falls Press, Arcadia Missa, and left gallery. Kherbek’s art journalism has appeared in numerous publications including Flash Art, AQNB, Sleek, and Spike among other titles. Kherbek’s collected art writings were published as Entropia Vol. 1 & 2 by Abstract Supply in 2022.