Jakob Rowlinson: I was working at the weekend, and I must have been one of the only queers who didn’t go to Mighty Hoopla. Did you go?

Ashley Joiner: I did go. I was going to say I’m newly sober but it’s been a year. It was my first big event being sober.

JR: Congratulations, a year is a big milestone.

AJ: Yeah, thanks. It was interesting to see sober, because usually I’m not. It was great just to people-watch, and Sonique was amazing.

JR: Yes, yes yes. I saw everyone posting about her.

AJ: I would say that was my favourite part. Also, Gabrielle was amazing, because we’re all there thinking we’re super cool and then Gabrielle comes on and we’re singing along like we’re nine years old and in our Mum’s car. It was very that vibe. SO yeah, congrats on the show. How are you feeling?

AJ: What was “homosexuality” like in the medieval period?

JR: It’s a good question. We don’t really know. Obviously “homosexual” is modern word from the Victorian period, but we of course know that people like you and me existed. Of course we’ve always been here! In the exhibition at Quench gallery, I’ve created a wallpaper. It’s all beautiful garden motifs and big floral swirls, and then in certain places I’ve scrawled some graffiti over the top which reads "Queer Woz Ere’”. This is a riff of the “We’re here. We’re Queer!” slogan and the “I Woz ‘Ere” graffiti you see written randomly on walls. The point of it is to recognise that we as queer people, are, and always have been, here.

So what would homosexuality have looked like in the medieval period? Probably not too dissimilar to now. There were many prejudices of course, but people definitely existed. One of my favourite films is Derek Jarman’s ‘Edward II’ and he paints a very homoerotic picture of the period. And whilst there are other sources that refer to powerful people being LGBTQIA+, we don't know much about the ordinary folk and their queer lives. There’s lots we have to speculate on. So yes. My work is very research based, but I hope it also explores these ideas in other ways. I love adornment, I love embellishment, which is very anti-modernism I guess and very in a way, medieval. It’s pageantry, it’s camp!

AJ: When we’re archiving, language is so difficult, because terms change over time so how do we go about archiving the LGBTQ+/homosexual/queer experience?

JR: With great difficulty because archives are a very privileged site, and I feel that’s why it’s important to mix it up and keep it moving. I use fiction so as not to feel pressured into writing a new canon but of different sorts. Because rewriting the archive is only ever going to end up as exclusionary activity. To disrupt or queer things is in some ways, also be about displacing knowledge from its very linear and inherited origins. So by blending references to different eras, and mixing contemporary slogans and jargon into the academia along with semi-fictional narratives, is my way of addressing that. Also, queer history has so often been one of persecution, and I feel it’s important to also explore more joyful celebratory experiences. 

AJ: It’s great to see the introduction of these natural, ecological motifs. Combined with the eyes peeping through, it feels like they’re at once concealing and revealing.

JR: I'm fascinated with queer ecology and a sort of voyeurism that often occurs in natural spaces. I read this text called 'Biological Exuberance' by Bruce Bagemill, and he basically outlines, from a scientific point of view, how animals and plants should be considered in a queer light. And it’s quite interesting to provide an artistic alternative to this biological study, demonstrating how visual motifs from different strands of culture can further a shift in what is considered nature and natural. In the medieval period, people would use animals to talk about gender and sexuality. They would hold up certain animals as being deviant or examples of how not to behave, and we strangely continue this tradition today, especially in things like animation and children's stories. I recently made a tapestry which featured various animals from Disney animations, including the fox character from Robin Hood. This story was actually based on a medieval folktale about a fox who would pester the local townspeople and became something of a morality tale called “Reynard the Fox”. Disney wanted to adapt this story for their own ends, but the plans ended up being a bit much for them, so instead they changed the narrative to Robin Hood as it’s a more obvious ‘good guy’ story. In my tapestry though I keen to explore the medieval roots of these animal characters and how they can be perceived as a kind of unravelling of these gender norms and behavioural expectations.

AJ: Maybe you can talk more about materiality. A lot of the works you make feature felt? 

JR: I love using felt because it's such an interesting and enjoyable material to manipulate. In large thicknesses, if you pierce a small hole in it, it can actually heal itself or knit the fibres back together. To me this is so incredible and also rather symbolic of how I use imagery from the past to flesh out gaps in our past. I also work with a range of different textiles and embroidery, as I like this clash between using soft and nurturing fabrics to address something kind of painful or violent. 

AJ: You said earlier that the work isn’t entirely autobiographical - are you able to share more about your own queer experience.?

JR: Sure. You were right to point out that I haven’t always been explicitly dealing with queer subject matters. I think that’s because I was still trying to work out quite a lot about myself. I think recent conversations have helped me realise that I’m still harbouring some queer shame. Not a lot obviously, but I’m often using my artwork to address this. Heraldry for instance is about honour, and I’m working through this in my personal life. How to balance discussing sex, sexuality and love, and how to make queer art rather than homoerotic art, because it can quite easily become quite tropey. All of these things still need more exploration for me, but in my work I am finally finding a way through.