Flare-Up / Turpentine by Katie Kitamura with Goldin+Senneby

Since 2018, Katie Kitamura has collaborated with Goldin+Senneby on an as-yet-untitled novel that emerges from the artist duo’s work on the language of autoimmunity—the fraught notion of a body at war with itself—and the stakes of reengineering life to defend against biological or environmental peril. The research, experiments, and performances undertaken by Goldin+Senneby have fed into Kitamura’s fiction, which, in turn, has influenced the duo’s work.

Kitamura’s novel-in-progress is composed of two discrete parts, set in versions of the same world. The plot and characters in each story are shaped by different variables, including mutant organisms and life-altering diseases. One half centers on a mysterious pine tree with a supercharged immune system; the other tells of a stranger whose sense of self—and biological coherence—comes into question as he seeks a novel treatment for his illness.

A two-chapter excerpt from Flare-Up was first published in the twentyeighth issue of Triple Canopy; and re-published together with a two-chapter excerpt from Turpentine at the American Academy in Rome in December 2023. This double booklet was re-published as Flare-Up / Flare-Up for the exhibition at Accelerator in 2025.

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Further Reading

Arrhenius Hagdahl, Nora. ”System Failure”, Kunstkritikk, March 18, 2025

Barron, Michael. ”Future Fictions”, Epiphany Magazine, Spring 2020

Kuan Wood, Brian. ”Insurgency of Life”, e-flux journal issue 109, May 2020

Zhexi Zhang, Gary. ”What Do We Mean By the ‘Real’ World?”, Frieze #212 July/August 2020