About
Amelia Farley is a writer and editor based in New York City. Their work traces how infrastructural systems shape social relations through both built environments and atmospheric conditions. Drawing on methodologies from ecocriticism, media studies, and the history of science, Farley's research attends to the extrasensory dimensions of public life—from hospital ventilation systems to enfeebling household chemicals. They are interested in air quality metrics as a simultaneous register of chemical "attunement" and site of political contestation, focusing on environmental illness, healthcare assemblages, “sick buildings," and care work. Their current research examines cultural organizing within historic healthcare workers' movements, exploring how artistic production animates labor struggles in spaces of care.
As Managing Editor at Karma Books (2019–2023), Farley developed publications in collaboration with major authors such as Hal Foster, Hilton Als, Eileen Myles, Lucy R. Lippard, John Yau, Aruna D'Souza, and Susan Howe. Notable titles include Matthew Wong: Postcards (2020) with texts by Henri Cole and Winnie Wong; The Mayor of Leipzig (2020), a novella by Rachel Kushner; Lee Lozano: Drawings 1958–64 (2021) with essays by Helen Molesworth and Tamar Garb; Woody De Othello (2021) featuring Lauren Schell Dickens and Mario Gooden; Let's Have A Talk (2021) by Lauren O'Neill-Butler; Manoucher Yektai (2021) with contributions from Fereshteh Daftari, Media Farzin, Robert Slifkin, Hadi Fallahpisheh, and Tahereh Fallahzadeh; and Kathleen Ryan: Daisy Chain (2022) with texts by Shannon Mattern and Heather Davis. They have also edited comprehensive monographs on artists such as Thaddeus Mosley, Ann Craven, Louise Fishman, and Reggie Burrows Hodges.
Beyond their editorial work, Farley has contributed critical writing to Artforum and The Brooklyn Rail, and has authored texts for Queer Thoughts, David Lewis Gallery, MAMA Projects, and Art Lot, among others. From 2017 to 2019, they co-founded and directed Paradise, an itinerant curatorial project and publication platform, organizing exhibitions there as well as for Free Paarking and Alyssa Davis Gallery. Their own work has been shown at Mole End, New York (2019), Performance Studies, NYU Tisch School of the Arts (2018), and OSLO10, Basel, Switzerland (2016), and their music practice, under the name Amelia Rose, has been featured on Noods Radio (Bristol, United Kingdom), Maitre d'360 87.9 FM (Seattle, Washington), and Berlin Community Radio. Recent projects include creative consulting on a digital coding education platform, developmental editing for an architectural book manuscript, editorial management for a museum exhibition catalogue, and indexing for a university press. They are currently at work on both critical and literary manuscripts that probe the spatial and temporal politics of care.
amelia.r.farley (at) gmail.com