Rosanna McLaughlin

A manifesto against the current moralizing trend in the arts.

Should art be determined by political ideals? In recent decades art institutions have sought to embody liberal values of universal equality and social justice. This move toward greater inclusivity has borne witness to a countervailing trend: artworks are increasingly scrutinized for their political implications, and artists must take care not to transgress particular moral fault lines.

Examining contemporary exhibitions as well as works of art and film, and the broader cultural reactions to them, Rosanna McLaughlin investigates the consequences of this moralizing approach to creative work. She invites us to rethink the connection between political values and art—and to ask whether a relationship between them should exist at all. In arguing against morality in the arts, McLaughlin lays the groundwork for a more expansive concept of difference in twenty-first-century art making.

"What if ambivalences were seen as productive, and not a danger to erase? Would we not begin to know ourselves better? What is it that we are so afraid of finding out? Art is a testing ground for ideas, a means of reaching. What a shame, if we use the space it offers to destroy it entirely."

Rosanna McLaughlin is a writer based in East Sussex and the author of Double-Tracking: Studies in Duplicity (2019) and Sinkhole (2023). Her writing on art and culture has featured in ArtReview, Frieze, Granta, The Guardian, and The White Review, among other publications. Between 2021 and 2023 she was co-editor of The White Review.

A novel in three parts, Sinkhole: Three Crimes submerges readers in a grotesque and comical world on the edge of collapse – much like our own. Britain is immersed in a toxic swamp, and sinkholes are opening up in the ground with alarming frequency. Amid the mayhem, three crimes take place: Stonehenge has been stolen, a porn-addicted ghost writer faces the phantoms of her past, and a murder takes place among ex-pats in a Goan village. 

‘An acidly funny vivisection of British mores and follies, delivered with razor wit and style. McLaughlin’s creative imagination is restless, wide-ranging and prescient, unveiling a terrifyingly plausible array of futures.’ – Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells 

‘Sinkhole is a twisted dystopian satire that captures all the maladies of modern England – a sick and perverse nation – in hilarious, pin-sharp definition, as it slides back under the waves.’ – Huw Lemmey, author of Red Tory: My Corbyn Chemsex Hell

Rosanna McLaughlin is an author and cultural critic. Double-Tracking, her debut collection of satirical essays and short fiction on the subject of middle-class duplicities, was published by Carcanet in 2019. An original proposal for the book was shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize in 2016. Rosanna has written on subjects including Ariana Grande, the legacy of Section 28, and the weaponisation of Ana Mendieta. In 2017, she was writer-in-residence for the British Council Caribbean, researching the political fallout following Mendieta’s death. Her reviews and essays have been published in frieze magazine, ArtReview and the Guardian, among other places. She is co-editor of The White Review.

Mousse celebrates its 90th issue with a collectible edition, with a special design and format, entirely focused on fiction.

Bringing together a cohort of writers and artists, Mousse #90 – The Fiction Issue stems from the eponymous Fiction column that has dwelled in our pages for five years, and expands its scope. It was developed together with Rosanna McLaughlin, Skye Arundhati Thomas, and Izabella Scott, who collectively coedited the art and literature quarterly The White Review between 2021 and 2023.

Here you'll find reprints from both Mousse and The White Review as well as new stories and translations we have jointly commissioned. Seven interludes, intended to open up other worlds through images, feature portfolios of drawings by Atelier dell'Errore, Michael E. Smith, Camille Henrot, Michael Landy, Simone Forti, Adelaide Cioni, and Evelyn Taocheng Wang.