An amalgamation of three simultaneous exhibition-specific poetry events resulted in an evening of creative indulgence.
Program 1: Ekphrasis poems are poems written about works of art. Museum goers were invited to respond of any artwork of their choice from the exhibition- Any Distance Between Us. This exhibition explored the power and significance of intimate relationships in a selection of artworks made between 1954 and 2021. From quiet, unassuming expressions of affection to the openly erotic, these works foreground the relationships between artists and their subjects. Attendees reflected on the work and wrote poems as a response.
Program 2: Blackout Poetry is the act of redacting words from a written piece of text in order to create a new poem. The program invited the public to take existing museum labels from the Renaissance gallery and create new texts using this method. Contrasting with program 1 where an additive method was used to create meaning, this subtractive method of creative writing enabled new meanings of labels where the participants had the autonomy to dictate the value of information.
Program 3: Inherent Vice is the tendency in an object or material to deteriorate or self-destruct because of its intrinsic internal characteristics. The exhibition displayed degraded gilded age garments that will be deaccessioned by the museum. Students from past semesters have been part of a class that have created responses and interventions for this gallery space. The Museum Guild invited some of these students to do readings of their written work that responded to the garments. Some imagined how the garment felt when worn while others beautifully described the rips of the seams.
