Look, Don’t Touch: on celebrating feeling with layla-roxanne hill and Francesca Sobande

Come along to welcome a new Inkling to the world with us!

As part of the Inkling series from 404 Ink, layla-roxanne hill and Francesca Sobande bring us a powerful, searching and world-expanding reflection on our freedom to feel, and the many ways in which society directs it or curtails it.

What does the command “look, don’t touch” suggest about the (lack of) freedom to feel in society?

hill and Sobande reflect on society’s nurturing and obstructing of emotional expression, physical touch, and connectedness between different species and spaces. Look, Don’t Touch journeys through the music of feeling, “self-help” social media, the power of public signage, and more to call for a move away from the language of “okayness”, and a move towards collectively uplifting forms of anger, agitation, love, solidarity, release, and ultimately, feeling.

The Inklings series, from 404 Ink, has presented big ideas in pocket-sized books since 2021, covering a wide range of subjects that you might have an inkling about but are perhaps not overly familiar with.

Our speakers:

Francesca Sobande is a writer and reader in digital media studies, who lives in Cymru (Wales).Francesca is co-author/co-dreamer with layla-roxanne hill of Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland. Her bylines include Disegno, Paste Magazine, and The Vinyl Factory. Francesca enjoys midnight skies and all things emo <3

layla-roxanne hill is an independent writer, researcher + organiser. she thinks + feels about many things, including anti-colonial struggle, care + belonging + the way our conditions move us to act. layla-roxanne is co-author/dreamer with francesca sobande of Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland. she is active in the trade union movement, holding elected positions within the bureaucratic machinery.