If ageism is addressed at all, it is often approached as affecting older people and elderly only. But ageism concerns all of us: everyone is assigned an age at birth. Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto refuses to fight ageism by reproducing capitalist arguments of value and heterosexual notions of linear time. Van Saarloos starts with an experience of childhood sexual abuse, and moves on to dissect the ways in which constructions of “age” and “youth” function to support and reproduce white supremacist patriarchy. With the help of the Architecture and Care department, what kinds of anti-ageist living condition can we imagine?

Simon(e) van Saarloos (they/them) is the author of Playing Monogamy, Take ‘Em Down: Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting, and Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto. They also work as a curator and artistic collaborator. Van Saarloos is based between Amsterdam and Oakland, California.