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American radio artist Joan Schuman produced Ligature in 2009. Listening to a number of Joan Schuman’s pieces I’m struck by the sensuality and dreamy surrealism in her work; she combines documentary poetics with radio drama and radio poem. Ligature is loosely based on the lives of Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins born in the UK in 1911. They were part of the European circus and sideshow circuit in the 1920s and 30s. Setting up the piece, Joan Schuman writes, “They’re retired now. They whisper themselves to sleep while conjuring what death will feel like when it comes to them both...Their single knotted torso extends beyond immediate relationship out to the world.” Ligature is part of a pair of pieces called Catalogue of Mourning. - Introduced by Wave Farm Radio Artist Fellow 2019/2020, Karen Werner.