I used this nice photo (which is one of my odes to the public space) as a prompt and wrote chapter II of of a yet unnamed series of poems (here is chapter I). Unlike fight (which might by the way, be chapter 0), instead of the image here it's the text that is moving. It's the first time that I'm experimenting with animated text and I must say that I like the idea a lot.

#chapter II

We sat together.

A body's gap between us

for the wind to roam free.

We hummed an old song

in false notes. The wind

sang along.

An eternal second

– a good company.

Another little boxed world. Boxes represent the confines of our existence, largely but not exclusively within society. I always try to combine playfulness with profound themes, as I believe that this playfulness speaks directly to the core of our existence, to an inner child.

Visually, technological elements (ear pods, antennas, chips) are juxtaposed to the actual act of listening, and finding meaning, while strong words demand individually and as a whole our attention.

The text of this piece is composed of found material from the text that accompanied Gernot Wieland's video Turtleneck Phantasies (2022) at Kindl – Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin. The video-art piece was highly inspirational and much of this inspiration was transferred to the text describing it. I took pieces of it and made something new, opening up the dialogue.

Learn to Listen

childhood

second skin

what remains?

a kind of obsession

protective remembrance

words

texts and drawings

dance, the absurd moments

The ubiquitous presence

all the little forms

traumatic experiences

excluded

I have phantasies

and (mostly illegible)

little attention.

What stories do I tell myself

unheard, and forgotten voices

possible ways of returning to the centre

anchor

a serious shipwreck

whose stories are told

dedicated to the murmuring, the illegible, the unspeakable,

In other words

Contemporary

In case you get lost, I made a 

map

We walk through deserts

in alien lands.

Our mouths 

are running

dry. 

The first in a series of illustrated dialogues, #chapter I goes wild in the combination of image and text embracing punk aesthetics and posing an important question: How important is the legibility of text for expressing its meaning and how much can we omit before the narrative breaks?

#chapter I

january 23

 The earth had turned upside down

so I woke up and saw the moon

where it had never been before

or was it me that had changed place?

No, no, you said

the world has turned upside down and 

I am sisyphus or maybe

it's the summer that's coming. 

Poetry issues #26, the last poetry issue featuring many works, was published in five parts between March and December 2022. It's a body of work that largely attempts to take poetry issues to the next level: The pieces are steadily leaving the 2D world, more dimensions (eg. audio and video) are being incorporated into the work, and the visual elements mingle more than ever with the text. And since this is just the beginning, I have decided to stop working in bundles of poems and let each piece grow on its own, and be published as a separate unit.  

Part I: Our Lost Babies (poem), Mirrors (artwork)

A "lost baby" is anything we dreamt of and didn't flourish, everything we strived for but lost in the end. Creation and loss are main themes in this piece, but closely connected to letting go and moving on.

Mirrors is a larger assemblage piece (95x60), the first one in a series of worlds. Every box is its own small world but they are all connected and constitute a single piece, like a mind with its several thoughts and ideas. 

For more detail:

Part II: Distance, a handmade book (and a song)

My own handmade paper, colored and illustrated with a mixed media technique, integrating collage elements, handwritten text and lots of color, that I always love.

Distance

The howling of the wind

triumphant in the space between us.

I just want to sleep

imagine the death of the wind

silence under the yellow sun

children's laughter roaring

a happy dog's bark.

That's how you tolerate loneliness

how sadness becomes sweet.

In a dream you held my hand

and led me through a dancing crowd.

In that dream you were my man.

An impression of the physical book:

Also, here's a link to the digital flipbook or, if you prefer, to the .pdf.

Part III: A Fight (video with sound)

A closer blending of text and image. In the video, the text is spoken and the image is moving. Everything changes a little in benefit of the whole.

A Fight

You were afraid that winter would come

and it was true: the days were getting shorter.

You longed for that last day on the beach

but the weather had already changed. 

The end, most of the time, doesn’t come with a bang

but as an echo of thoughtless words or as an aftertaste

of dry, bitter grass.

It’s crazy how the weather changes

faster than my mood.

Anyway, I believe we’ll make it 

through the winter.

We both haven’t been really good

at being weighed down by reality.

“Lightness” has the word “light” in it. Light is spring. 

The last day on the beach I was alone.

I found in my bag a kernel of corn 

that you had given me. It was stale

but I ate it ceremonially. It was late

it was cloudy and I was cold. 

I set our messages of fire. We’ve had enough

sun for a summer. Now it was time to step back inside.

Part IV: Appropriation

I appropriated this piece in the same way man appropriates nature, in the same way that I am appropriated, boxed, controlled, tamed: the victim becomes the perpetrator.

So, I made sure

the animals

would graze

behind a wire

fence.  

Part V: tinder date

More on the playful than the profound side, using the same superficiality that it comments upon, "tinder date" is the result of careful observation of the online dating world. I view my character with empathy, but of course my viewpoint is almost never a flattering one.

My tinder date

I shaved my balls

I rode my horse

I did my best

She never came

Now who will save me?

You can read more about the poetry issues project here.

More on the playful than the profound side, using the same superficiality that it comments upon, "tinder date" is the result of careful observation of the online dating world. I view my character with empathy, but of course my viewpoint is almost never a flattering one.

My tinder date

I shaved my balls

I rode my horse

I did my best

She never came

Now who will save me?

This project ends the 26th volume of poetry issues and the poetry issues project itself comes to an end. A new cycle begins, of course, but as I am turning artistically towards more three-dimensional representations of the text and as every visual and every text project become intertwined, I feel that they grow on their own and not as part of a bundle. I want to give them thus the right to exist more than ever apart from each other.

If you are curious, you can read more about the poetry issues project here.

There's a nice story behind this piece: My very good friend Alex bought this print as a present for me, as a souvenir of my visiting her in Sweden. The paper was quite old and it had lost its plasticity. As a result, the print didn't make it whole on the trip back home. "I will restore it", I said to Christian. "Why don't you make it yours?" he said. And so I did. This is half the reason why I named the piece "Appropriation". The other half has to do with man treating nature, even when it comes to his own kind, as a commodity that he owns. Under the same principle, which might be called 'efficiency' or even 'evolution', nature, and man as part of it, suffers boxed, controlled and tamed:

So, I made sure

the animals

would graze

behind a wire

fence.  

You can read more about the poetry issues project here.

In a sense, this 3rd part of poetry issues #26 is a closer blending of text and image. In the video, the text is spoken and the image is moving. Everything changes a little in benefit of the whole.    

A Fight

You were afraid that winter would come

and it was true: the days were getting shorter.

You longed for that last day on the beach

but the weather had already changed. 

The end, most of the time, doesn’t come with a bang

but as an echo of thoughtless words or as an aftertaste

of dry, bitter grass.

It’s crazy how the weather changes

faster than my mood.

Anyway, I believe we’ll make it 

through the winter.

We both haven’t been really good

at being weighed down by reality.

“Lightness” has the word “light” in it. Light is spring. 

The last day on the beach I was alone.

I found in my bag a kernel of corn 

that you had given me. It was stale

but I ate it ceremonially. It was late

it was cloudy and I was cold. 

I set our messages of fire. We’ve had enough

sun for a summer. Now it was time to step back inside.

You can read more about the poetry issues project here.

Creation is a process of trial and error. Since my major interest lies in the different ways of presenting and experiencing text, for part 2 of poetry issues #26 I created a small book from scratch: My own handmade paper, colored and illustrated with a mixed media technique, integrating collage elements, handwritten text and lots of color, that I always love. The book itself is a unique, collectible item. However, below you can find a digital version of it. All I can say about the poem, which is also available here in simple text form, is that it appears as a common love piece, but maybe a second reading will reveal the underlying theme of gender identity. In any case, I prefer to leave the interpretation open to the reader. 

For "Our Lost Babies" I included an audio reading of the piece. Here I went a step further. This time I have a song for you:

Distance

The howling of the wind

triumphant in the space between us.

I just want to sleep

imagine the death of the wind

silence under the yellow sun

children's laughter roaring

a happy dog's bark.

That's how you tolerate loneliness

how sadness becomes sweet.

In a dream you held my hand

and led me through a dancing crowd.

In that dream you were my man.

An impression of the physical book:

Also, here's a link to the digital flipbook or, if you prefer, to the .pdf.

You can read more about the poetry issues project here.