Spirit + Flesh

LADA partnered with Shubbak Festival 2025 to co-present Lara Habib Kobeissi’s Nazar, a one-to-one VR performance that engages all five senses in a transformative ritual rooted in protection practices from Southern Lebanon.

Audio documentation of conversation between Lara Habib Kobeissi and Shubbak festival director Alia Alzougbi on Wednesday 11 June 2025.

The conversation explored Lara’s process of making Nazar, including the movement from archival research to intimate world-building through virtual reality, ritual and touch. The talk looked at digital archiving as an act of soft resistance, aimed at restoring collective memory and intangible heritage.

Nuidey is a short film made on an iPhone. It depicts three middle-aged queers, two of them fat, dancing in the Western Isles in slow motion in June 2024. They are naked.

There is a soundtrack of twangy music and reflections by the performers, which are subtitled. The reflections concern the place, light, rationale; fat subjectivity; what it is to be seen in real life and online; illness and decision-making. The conversation is intimate, the performers know each other well.

The film was conceived of and made by Charlotte Cooper as an expansion of her book Fat Body Work (2025 33editions).

The film was screened as part of Live Art Bookshop: Fat Body Work Launch at LADA on Wednesday 29 October 2025.

F A U L T L I N E S (2022) is a performance video from SITE, screened at LADA as part of Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest exhibition The Body Is a Thing in Time, curated by kane stonestreet.

(dis)closure (2025) is a performance by kane stonestreet at CEREMONY, a festival from Future Ritual. The documentation was screened at LADA as part of Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest exhibition The Body Is a Thing in Time, curated by kane stonestreet.

cock~salt (2025) is a performance to camera by Claye Bowler, screened at LADA as part of Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest exhibition The Body Is a Thing in Time, curated by kane stonestreet.

An online event to celebrate the launch of artist and writer Tara Fatehi Irani’s new book Mishandled Archive, published by LADA. Hosted by Rachel Mars, the event features an excerpt from Tara’s performance of Mishandled Archive with Pouya Ehsaei, a performative presentation by Diana Damian Martin, Mary Paterson, Jemima Yong, Maddy Costa and Holly Revell and special appearances by Giulia Palladini and Joe Kelleher.

Writer and academic Dominic Johnson hosts a rare UK appearance by the US (French based) artist Skip Arnold. They screened a selection of Skip’s videos and other documents, and discussed the body, duration, intervention, commitment, and documentation.

A visual diary zine of the Chines photographer SickGirl’s (@eeriesickgirl) Exile Route between 25 Dec 2023 and 16 Nov 2024.

The Hologram is a feminist health militia that produces networks where we can practice skills like trust, communication, and cooperation that will help us outlast capitalism.

A short text and image piece by artist Kira O'Reilly, accompanied by a photo of O'Reilly's "Menopause Gym."

In a cyclical feat of endurance and precision, Blood Show is a raw, euphoric choreography between 3 figures and 75 litres of fake blood. A call to action to put what’s inside on the outside and defend against a violent gaze, Blood Show questions rebirth and how we all carry our ghosts with us.