A conversation between artist Sam Ashby and academic Harry Cocks in conjunction with Ashby’s current exhibition Sanctuary at San Mei Gallery.

This event expands on the research and themes behind Ashby’s exhibition to discuss traditions of queer mysticism across the Atlantic from the nineteenth century until today.

Ashby’s film Sanctuary explores the historical figure of Peter Purusha Androgyne Larkin (1934–1988), and forms part of an ongoing body of artistic research into queer spirituality and utopian sexualities across a selection of forgotten historical lives.

This conversation marks the launch of a new publication, which has been commissioned in conjunction with Sanctuary.

Biographies

Harry Cocks is Associate Professor of history at University of Nottingham. He is the author of Nameless Offences: Homosexual Desire in Nineteenth-Century England (2009) and Visions of Sodom: Religion, Homoerotic Desire, and the End of the World in England, c.1550–1850 (2017).

Sam Ashby (b. 1981) is a British artist based in London. Sam’s archival, research-led practice is concerned with uncovering marginal narratives and activating them through film, writing and publishing. From 2010–2021 he edited, designed and published Little Joe, a journal for the discussion of film around subjects of sexuality and gender within a queer historical context. His first film, The Colour of His Hair (2017) premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam and won the Best Documentary prize at London Short Film Festival 2018. His last, La Licorne (2022), was commissioned by Villa Noailles for the 90th anniversary of Île du Levant, a naturist colony in the South of France. He was an artist in residence at the Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR, 2014), is a recipient of the Van Abbemuseum’s Deviant Practice research grant (2018–2019), and is a MacDowell Colony Fellow (2016, 2019). Most recently, he has edited an anthology of Little Joe for SPBH Editions/MACK, and was an artist in residence at the Tom of Finland Foundation (2024).

This event is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council via Nottingham University. Ashby’s exhibition Sancutary is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.