news | Tuesday August 27, 2024

Leanne Dunic Interviewed in Plenitude

L’amour Lisik interviewed Leanne Dunic about her new poetry and photography collection Wet for Plenitude Magazine.

An excerpt from their conversation: “At one point in the novel, we learn “I remember being / on a trip with my ex. / […] He was asleep in my arms / and still / I was empty.” There’s a distinct sense of loneliness, compounded by the photos featuring empty urban landscapes, lifeless figurines, and occasionally people, their faces obscured by shadows, masks, or distance—a juxtaposition between how the narrator feels and the bustling city-state she lives in. How did you go about taking and choosing the photos to include in this project? What was the process for arranging them amongst the poems?

I’m glad that loneliness came through. I think the idea of loneliness as a consequence of climate disaster is often overlooked. If folks didn’t have to quarantine, or stay indoors due to extreme weather, I’d like to think we’d be connecting. I went to Singapore after a seven-year absence, only to arrive with Covid for the first time, and so I was isolated for nearly two weeks—very similar to the character in Wet. The cover is a photo I took in the hotel bathroom while isolating. I took the rest of the photos in the two days that I was no longer testing positive. It was very hard to narrow down and curate the sequences, but I’m happy with the arrangements.”

Read their full interview here and be sure to catch Leanne Dunic at the Victoria Festival of Authors this October! Details here.