William Kherbek: Ecology of Secrets

Deep cover, a new identity, a beached whale… a man with dreadlock implants using the alias Spanx is rooting the crusty enviro-activists out of their squats.
An ambitious young detective is tasked with creating a new kind of surveillance project to contain domestic extremists: become a domestic extremist. Under the pretence of forming a cell of environmental activists, Spanx and company go deep into the belly of the beast. Along the way, they take over the identities of dead children, the carcasses of cetaceans, and Wordsworth’s cottage in Grasmere. But then Spanx falls for a flower child called Psyche, takes on one identity too many and things really get complicated.

William Kherbek is an artist and writer based between London and Berlin. He earned his PhD from the University of London in linguistics with a focus on the experimental poet John Ashbery before pursuing a joint practice in art-writing and art-studio. Kherbek has published a work of fiction, the novel Ecology of Secrets in two editions with Arcadia Missa, as well as a sizeable body of art criticism in various journals, most recently Doggerland and Art Agenda.