Summer Research Snapshot: Lyónn Wolf

Lyónn is currently in the early reading, reflection and synthesis phase of his doctoral research, using writing as a primary method for developing ideas and refining research direction. His emerging project explores questions of temporality, transness and queerness, drawing on Afrofuturist and Afropessimist thought, alongside utopian forms of inquiry grounded in historical experience and present conditions. A key research resource is a trans archive established at Ulster University in the 1980s by a trans academic. 

Alongside research development, Lyónn is actively engaged in knowledge exchange activities, including attendance at the forthcoming Bearing Witness in Turbulent Times symposium, and is invited as a respondent in the symposium ‘What is Creative Production?’. They also reflected on their position as an artist-researcher and on how best to engage with academic structures and communities. 

Lyónn is interested in international opportunities that support in-situ archival research and the repatriation of archival content. A collaborative planning session with their supervisor in the coming weeks will help further shape the thesis project and identify future directions. Potential outputs include community workshops, speculative writing, performance and publication, conceived as interconnected forms of knowledge production.