infusoria

Saturday, 2 May 2009

infusoria: the movie

I spent this afternoon at Svend Thomsen's place putting the titles on his film of the exhibition. It is the first time I'd seen it, and with real life getting in the way a bit the last few weeks, I'd pretty much forgotten he was working on it.

You know how often you come away from an exhibition and the catalogue, postcards, leaflets or whatever just don't hit the spot? They miss the magic? And you end up buying a postcard anyway as a reminder of something that isn't in the picture? Well this is a whole different thing. It's all there. Short of actually letting you mess around with the dice and music box and magnifying glass yourself, it has everything.

You will have a chance to see it soon, I promise: it is absolutely exquisite.

Jessica Smith, a.rawlings, Helen White

Jessica Smith: Veil

a.rawlings: rule of three

Claire took this amazing picture of the shadows cast by angela's poems

Helen White

I like giving away my pebbles to people. Dirk Vekemans swapped me a pebble for this lovely little Buddha, who spent the rest of the exhibition as part of my piece. He lives on my bedside table now (the Buddha, not Dirk).

These last two pictures are stills from Svend Thomsen's film.

I think this last one in particular comes closer to what I was trying to do than the piece itself - thanks Svend!

Thursday, 23 April 2009

People

A few of the visitors on the last day of the exhibition:
A man who came back three times (one of the neighbours who got an infusoria flyer through his door). His only comment was that the exhibition was strange, that I obviously liked strange things, but he kept coming back for more. A woman who said she had enjoyed the exhibition, to which I replied with my belief that if one person takes something away with them then the whole thing is worthwhile. A man from India who happened to be walking past about half an hour before the very end: he kept repeating that if he had walked the other way home, he would never have known. Many people walking by who look through the windows, sometimes for quite a while, but don't come in.

There are two particular things about infusoria that matter to me. One is providing a gathering place and an opportunity for communication between the participants. The other is offering visitors that butterfly-winged experience of seeing something beautiful when you are not really expecting it. I didn't think I'd be able to tell whether people "get anything" out of the exhibition or not: politeness and shyness can both get in the way. But with strangers I have found that I often can tell. Some clearly walk away unmoved, even irritated; others take the trouble to tell me they were glad they'd bothered to step off the footpath and come inside.

Sharon Harris, Moniek Darge, Ayşegül Tözeren

Sharon Harris

Sharon and Moniek

Moniek Darge

Ayşegül Tözeren

Monday, 20 April 2009

Two calls for work from House Press

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: derek beaulieu
Subject: concrete / visual

hey folks;
i'm making an occasional concrete / visual poetry "magazine" (read: multi-page leaflet / handout / ephemeral item) which will feature new visual poetry, with possible historical / rare examples ... do any of you have work you could perhaps email me which i could include?

im thinking previously unpublished (or if published, then infrequently seen...)... colour or B&W is fine, email or snail mail is also good.

id be honoured to include work from any of you (the deadline is open, i'll publish when i have enough feature-able work) ...
feel free to forward this call on to people who's work you think i should know of...

thanks!
d

derek beaulieu
derek at housepress dot ca
-----------------------------------------

And - separately, I think? - House Press is accepting submissions for Source Material 04 until 20th May. That's all the information I have, although there is a pdf of SM03 on the link above.