PAST EVENT

For Trans Awareness Week 2025 we gathered at Fruitmarket for an in-conversation with Trans Masc Studies’ Ellis Jackson Kroese and poet Remi Graves. The artists discussed coal, Graves’ new publication from Monitor Books, and Memory is a Museum, Jackson Kroese’s ongoing research project with Edinburgh Art Festival, exploring the possibilities of the trans masc archive.

The in-conversation included readings from coal, audience questions, and an opportunity for signings from the artists. A video recording of the event is available to watch at the bottom of this page.

About coal + Remi Graves 

Blackfriars Bridge, 1905. A Black Cherokee man looking for his wife is arrested and charged as a ‘wandering lunatic’. In the City of London asylum, he is photographed: looking directly at the camera, he insists, he refuses. He dies in the asylum one year later.

In their new publication, coal, Remi Graves writes from and into the trans archive in the absence of Paul Downing’s own account. coal presents a sequence of poems and experiments mapping resonances between selves across historical records. Remi Graves is a poet and drummer from London, whose work has been featured on BBC Radio 4, at St Paul’s Cathedral and in various anthologies. coal won the inaugural Prototype Prize (short form category) in 2024. coal is published by Monitor, a small press in London publishing writing by poets and artists in bespoke editions.

About Memory is a Museum + Ellis Jackson Kroese

Memory built museum, and then museum built memory. Memory sits in museum until closing time. Museum lays down in memory and falls asleep.

What could a museum devoted to trans masculine lives become? Ellis Jackson Kroese’s ongoing research project Memory is a Museum traces the histories of masculine-leaning gender diversity. For EAF25, the fictional Museum of Trans Masculinity was imagined through archive displays, a publication, and wearable merchandise.

Ellis Jackson Kroese (they/them) is an artist, writer and researcher from Northumberland, working through printmaking, fibre craft, found imagery and ephemera. In their ongoing project Trans Masc Studies, they look into the history of masculine-leaning gender diversity.

Watch a video recording of the conversation: