Exhibition blurb
opens tomorrow! Very excited…
Mistranslations
an exhibition of interpretations and collaborations with poet Nathan Jones as part of a residency at the Bluecoat / 16th – 26th June
Exhibits
Misunderstanding giclee print // In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni digital print
The Orphan digital print // Museum giclee print //
with Scott Spencer www.joyofatoy.co.uk
A series of poetry prints forming the central body of work of this exhibition. The poems for these pieces are formed by interrogating existing texts by poets and philosophers through various distortions and elaborations – including a technique combining automatic writing with internet translation software. We hope the resulting poems and artworks have an illusive and rewarding depth. In Girum was first displayed as part of an art happening in a church in Shoreditch, London, and references, among other things, the idiosyncratic form of the church billboard.
Before Love
with Markus Soukup www.toofastproductions.co.uk
The poem for this film is again developed through distorting an original text – this time the parable ‘Before the Law’ from Kafka’s The Trial has been translated through the metaphor ‘Love is law’. Markus’ film was envisaged as an environment in which to really listen to the vocal, while developing a visual imagery which builds on the themes of the poem-within-the-poem, abstraction and realism, and the nature of the poetical work as an environment which the audience explore.
The Saddest Day of Her Miracle Year /
The Gods Try Once in a Million Years digital print
with Phillip Marsden www.phillipmarsden.com
Continuing ideas of interpretations, distortions and partner-pieces, my original poem, The Saddest Day of Her Miracle Year was adapted into a comic strip by Phil. At the same time, Phil created corresponding frames for a strip that would be a reflection of the first. I have responded to this second strip with a new poem.
The Coming performance document
with Sarah Nicolls www.sarahnicolls.com
This document aims to record the nature of a collaboration between me and Sarah, composed and performed on a prepared piano several times between 2008-10, and conversations around the vocabulary of performance in poetry and music. The notation is Sarah’s work, with a view to creating a source document that fellow musicians and performers can use to recreate the piece. It is presented here with a drawing by Neil Keeting, who collaborated with us on a performance of this piece in October 2009.
Slow Magic book
with Emily Speed www.emilyspeed.co.uk
Emily and I share an interest in notions of architecture and psychology. Here she has created a special folding print for a poem I wrote to accompany the Bluecoat’s Slow Magic exhibition. A limited number of these books are for sale, please ask at the Bluecoat front desk.
Self Portraits text and photographs
with Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom www.boakye-yiadom.com
This collaboration mixes Junior’s fascination with the unspoken vocabularies inherent in objects, and my own interest in exploring the nature of the reader/writer relationship in a low-volume book market.
Equinox text print and ex-brick
with Andre Guedes
This extract text was originally presented as part of an exhibition by Andre, as the culmination of artistic research into the undocumented histories of the Bluecoat. It is seen here in a new setting designed by the artist, including a crushed brick from the original Bluecoat building archive.
