poetry – The Laboratory of Dissent 2019

Stirring in between spaces; whisperation, murmerette

Posted on 6th December 2019by Maija Liepins

ARTIST’S NOTEBOOK
Week 5

I’ve been on a quest
for the immediacy

The moment here.
The breath, the whisper
In the space between
The whisper of wind is unseen.
A visual artist makes visible
the invisible senses?
The hidden things
in between the spaces.
Negative space
Dark matter
Other world faces
Rain spatter.
Water floods and
fire takes to the sky
an elemental maelstrom
A sparkle in your eye.

I have been thinking about The Whisper

Whispering is defined as speaking very softly using ones breath instead of ones vocal chords.

This makes sense of the phrase “the whisper of wind”

Which, in turn, explains my sense that a whisper can touch, tickle, and stir movement in your state of being the way that wind can touch the skin.

Tickle

Buffet

Push mightly in gusts

Blow out the cobwebs

Play with your hair

Chill you to the bone

I tense myself against autumnal winds

Go giddy in the summer breeze at dusk

In all these ways the breath can speak to the body

The wind can carry sounds

and meanings

but it’s touch and impact is below sight

experienced with all the senses

or not noticed at all

like the whisper

‘the underground’ momentum

of the invisible river

on which I sail my boat.

Group 3; The Whisper Cell

Shifting Lines

Posted on 6th December 2019by Maija Liepins

The energetic shock of yellow was out in full force last night. We welcomed at least 80 students, staff, and friends to a PV finale on Thursday evening. Karen Wood had made yellow striped bandannas marking out the quadruplet who would descend upon her red black and white tape installation to rip it up and down, removing it from the walls (video here). It was a very fun way to end the project with our visitors.

I’d like to think Karen’s invitation gave our visitors the chance to experience art work as a moving thing not a fixed point in time and space.

An ending
A beginning
Word seeds
scattered to the wind
–
thank you Karen @kbwoodnews
for the playful invite
To set the double yellows
free
to fly with us
/
me
Grinning
Gesticulating
Prancing new lines
across the floor
Circling @kz1y19 to talk about inside/outside
Wearing old lines
That lifted us up up
and dragged us down down down
Like birds on the thermals
–
The excitement in the air
breathed in
invigorates me too and still
it’s memory fresh
the vision new

*Trace*
Maija re-dressed in tape, modelling ‘wall art’
A five second action

Reactions

Art hidden under lights

Posted on 6th December 2019by Maija Liepins

ARTIST’S DIARY

a word wander:

Susan Merrick’s
choice of materials
Bring you a playful step closer
to making the mystery of Imagination
your own every day.
In the space between,
the rejected feminine elements are
Laughing and whispering noisily across the gallery surfaces,
Making their presence known,
Pulling at the threads of things
Like mischievous ghosts.

I feel like I am 15 again
Susan is making everything fun.

I feel like I am 12
Playing ancient characters
from storybooks.

The process of reclaiming material from all ages, epochs and ocean beds will never look right under the glare.
Mud and guts of the world.
Utilitarian pins and nails and things.
Ashes in my mouth.
Tear it down before it’s done.
The art is hidden under the lights.
All the surprising combinations
blooming in the conditions set.
Defying ideas
Of what we thought we were doing.
A garden under lights.

Thursday

View this post on Instagram

#labofdissent2019

A post shared by Clarisse Halverson (@artin_thegarden) on Dec 5, 2019 at 10:49am PST

Group 3; The Whisper Cell Library

Zeitgeist Non grata (film)

Posted on 5th December 2019by Maija Liepins

Group 3; The Whisper Cell Library

Zeitgeist Non Grata (source)

Posted on 29th November 2019by Maija Liepins

Sometimes I just let the words flow without knowing what I’m saying. I was reading my poems and I found this phrase: zeitgeist non grata. I had to google the two words but was rewarded with discovering the combo is related to dissent.

Lust and vigour
Retitlation
Soaking resting
Reclining partaking
Zeitgeist non-grata
Magna carta
Heart based realisations
Pulsing through the cut
Warmth reaches where
Before was cold
And new life stirs
From its dream filled
Slumber

Every era has prevailing trends and world views specific to that culture. We often internalise the voices and stories of our cultures and conform to them. The forbidden, taboo and undesirable gets suppressed Inside and identities emerge around our idea of our approved place in the world…

New work on show at Winchester Gallery until Friday 6th December.

Zeitgeist Non-Grata

Featuring conversational poetry
between Maija Liepins and Sarah Misselbrook

Still from the film which has been described as *“a chocolate box of brutal imagery”*

Group 3; The Whisper Cell

Conversational Poetry; a spontaneous collaboration experiment

Posted on 28th November 2019by Maija Liepins

A couple of weeks ago I asked Sarah Misselbrook if she has a photo of herself with her shaved head that I could use.
From this, came the following idea:

For almost a week we have been exchanging messages at approximately 8.00 every morning – just a couple – echoing, diffracting, multiplying, inspiring.

Click here to read the full text!

Zeitgeist Non-Grata

New work on show at Winchester Gallery
Featuring conversational poetry
between Maija Liepins and Sarah Misselbrook

Best times to see: Tues 3rd and Weds 4th of December 2019 between 10am – 4.30pm

[17:01, 11/20/2019] maija:

Rapunzle: I shaved my head to communicate that I didn’t need saving

Sarah: I shaved my head as an act of rebellion. To shed or rid myself of a traditionally ‘feminine’ attribute in order to avoid the prescription of beautification and adornment.

Group 3; The Whisper Cell Reactions

Inside-Outside Conflict

Posted on 23rd November 2019by Maija Liepins

Yesterday was demanding and today will demand more of me.
(show up, show up anyway?)

I wrote this morning a stream of consciousness, and I find that although it was inspired by an everyday encounter and not this project specifically, I notice the themes I am exploring have weft and wove throughout my perception and provided metaphors with which to express the experience.

Enjoy!

There is a conflict between Inside and Outside,
Rapunzle’s tower feels so tempting today:
Hunker down
Retreat
Withdraw.
Anger burns up the walls
from the furnace of my heart
Come close and the flames will lick you
yes, Dancing in the fire
That’s my idea of a good day today.
Alchemy transforming the elements at my borders
New crystalline mementos…
not gargoyle heads
not medusa heads
not lion heads
not papyrus or paint pots
flowers! yes, flowers
Blooming like the night lily
on the border between sky and pond.

There is a conflict between inside – outside.
Do I keep up my walls
and perform, stoic as a buttress?
Do I dress myself in crocodile’s
in a moat bordering my childish upswell
with a warning snap to give me time?
Time to feel
Time to think
Time to respond.

Aha, see, there is the conflict
Truly I don’t fare well alone with my thoughts
Alone with my words
Alone with my ideas,
Running round and round like stale bread in tin.

There is the conflict:
How easy it would be to withdraw from the not me,
the not wanted, the not cool,
Paying the price in rigid conclusions
and stony constructions encrusting my mind with
a labyrinthine resolve to protect my ideas of self and other
Suspended like a moth in a specimen glass
Against my instinct
My training
My advice.

I need the outside, the other, the
input battering my keep
with the energy and colour of a summer rain
creating rainbows in the autumnal chill
To grow
To learn
To revitalise:
The phenomena of intra-action
The entanglement of multiple beings
Be-ing in this life
This ecosystem.

The place between this Inside mood
and Outside pull tugging at my skirts
like twenty cubs, or a vigorous wind.
How many mothers, parents, sisters, brothers
feel harassed by the pull of other world desires?
Two worlds meet in the space between.

I don’t really desire solitude,
just a place to stand where I can be;
Be one of many on the lily pads
Drinking from the top and bottom
of an ecosystem that supports me
(too).

Group 3; The Whisper Cell

Mysterious Secret Door

Posted on 20th November 2019by Maija Liepins

The crystal gate

vibrates in welcome

Deep toned rich toned

music it makes

Refracting white and glowing deep

colours of the heart.

A wisdom sleeps

beyond this door

A prison keeps you

from knowing more

Shake off your

shoulders the encrusted

silt and free your

Limbs from the vigorous vine

you must will it

Truly fully ask it

knowing it will meet you

Beyond the secret door

Reactions

No Lines

Posted on 7th November 2019by Maija Liepins

In response to “rules for ash”.

This was written two years ago to express an alternative viewpoint which is being pulled in to sharp focus, as we each need to create a structure, a perimeter and a parameter within which to work if we are to achieve anything at all.

There is no line
No outline
It works as a drawing exercise
But to live by it is to lose
Spacial awareness in a sea of objects
Focus in a mass of information.
Abandoning form and boundary lines
Constructed by the mind
External action is fruitless
A leak of energy, unmastered
You see everything but also nothing
Raw material remains unmanifest.

It helps to know the eye and the active
mind are pulling focus
Ordering reality, not passive observers.
There is no line until you make it
Just don’t fight too hard to keep it
As the tension between forms is the
Agitation sparking creativity
Which never can create without grinding,
Pounding, exploding forms and
edging out on the wake of change
that which must die
Not because it can’t co exist
But because it is food for your task
Material for new forms.