The Architecture of Painting & Poetry
When talking together about the creation of painting or poetry both Sandra Beccarelli and myself referred to the ‘architecture’ of it: the underlying structure, which makes up the surface of what is written or painted. Looking at each other’s notebooks and sketch books, we were able to see how the other processed thoughts and ideas through words and images. Sandra often takes photos of the physical construction at the back of her paintings as well as the constant changes taking place on the ‘front’. Written words, sometimes encircled or crossed out are reminiscent of notes in my own writing notebooks. In my notebooks Sandra saw words and sentences which followed a line or were scribbled in the borders and edges. She saw a beautiful patchwork of seemingly random sentences written in different colours with signs and symbols acting as visual prompts.
In Sandra’s sketchbooks, I saw colours and marks, shapes, images and notes, and on one page a list of words to which I started a textual response.
The fractured and fragmented surfaces of Sandra’s paintings which reference changes within natural and urban environments will provide me with a stimulus to create possible fragmented narratives. How are we to read drafts, the strikethrough, tracings of something that was there but in theory, no longer. absent.
In this collaboration, I am imaging my text/poetry as a canvas. I will destroy the page & deconstruct meaning/words/ destabilise the narrative sentence, in the same working process as Sandra attempts in her art practice. She paints over, erases, damages, transforms the images. I will work with notions of process, crafting, shifting, movement, ideas of erosion and change and explore wider issues which arise from/out of the folds of such dialogues. My poetry/text will embody conceptualisations of The Fold as postulated by Gilles Deleuze in his book, The Fold: Leibnitz and the Baroque.
A page from Sandra’s sketchbook
In the Absence of Visible Walls
In an exploration of urban politics and city spaces, ‘In the Absence of Visible Walls’ is a project that discusses urban regeneration through the lens of ‘the wall’. The wall is visceral and fundamental element of architecture, a 3D representation of the line. It demarcates, it is a boundary, it is architecture making a mark, a point of transition, a division. The wall creates space, it creates community, it is a device of control and power. We therefore position the wall as an architectural device that can be used to explore how we engage in notions of memory, loss, homes, demolition and boundaries. The project aims to bring together the historical narratives of erasure, destruction and gentrification of ‘Robin Hood Gardens’, a housing estate in East London and the space of ‘Manufaktura’ and the boundaries of Litzmannstadt Ghetto in the city of Lodz in Poland (a ghetto that was created by the Germans during the Second World War in the Old Town and Baluty districts of Lodz) through the notion of ‘the wall’. The project fuses a dialogue between cultural geography and creative writing, text, film and image in an attempt to highlight the stories of sites, areas/spaces that have undergone and/or are currently undergoing change. In as much as this project explores the effects of gentrification (Robin Hood Gardens and Manufaktura), it also opens up new narratives and perspectives on how spaces and buildings are haunted by the past and the interplay between presence and absence, memory and forgetting. Furthermore, ‘In the Absence of Visible Walls’ looks at the boundaries of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto and explores the visibility and invisibility of history. We ask how urban spaces speak and remember the trauma of a historical past? How the absence of past homes is still present? how buildings and architecture can haunt another? We will record our personal experiences of these spaces with the hope to create an engaging response, highlighting the hauntological sensibilities of building, demolition, memory and the (in)visible boundaries that still exist in our geographical landscape.
Video Poem, Foundations in collaboration with Andy Bullock
The Wapping Project is the creation of the Womens Playhouse Trust (WPT), which was set up in 1981. It is a platform for risk taking and the continuous development of ideas. The Poem passage1 was commissioned by The Wapping Project, seeking a creative response to the theme, passage to coincide with the day of the dead – the day of remembrance and honour of the deceased. It will be in print publication in the summer of 2017.
Click below to read passage1 publication:
http://thewappingproject.org/the-wapping-project-passage/
More info: http://thewappingproject.org/commissions/
European Poetry Night – Ana Seferovic & Agnieszka Studzinka on YouTube
Project in Progress: The Poetics of Home ’ in collaboration with award winning poet George Szirtes. Compiling an anthology of contemporary poetry, which focuses on the notion of Home.
Project in Progress: with photographer, artist, filmmaker Andy Bullock, andybullock.co.uk An ongoing collaboration exploring the possibilities of word and image.
Agnieszka Studzińska 