A book launch for Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry (2025, Punctum Books) is a collection of writings and images from a performance and film set within a neighborhood laundromat, a microcosm of service work within our urban reality. With a focus on the people who are paid to wash and fold, Hand Book explores the convergence of dirt, stains, money, identity, and desire. Informed by both theory and history, filmmaker-poet Lynne Sachs and playwright Lizzie Olesker construct a model for making a site-specific work incorporating both live performance and film. A short performance by Jasmine Holloway and screening of the experimental film, The Washing Society (45 min), made in parallel with the book, will be part of the event. Post screening discussion: Lynne Sachs and Lizzie Olesker, in conversation with Tera Hunter (Chair, African American Studies, Princeton) and Ayesha Williams (Executive Director The Laundromat Project).

Co-sponsors: Center for Black Visual Culture, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, CMCH’s World Records Journal

NYU attendees must present their NYU ID. Non-NYU attendees must present their photo ID upon arrival.