Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud; was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he started writing at a very young age and excelled as a student, but abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to run away to Paris amidst the Franco-Prussian War.[5] During his late adolescence and early adulthood, he produced the bulk of his literary output. Rimbaud completely stopped writing literature at age 20 after assembling his last major work.

The studio was 4 weeks long, divided into 4 parts:

Installations
Texts
Drawing
Theatre

We started with reading some of the poems of Arthur Rimbaud and understanding the meaning behind them through discussions, questioning, etc. After reading some of his poems we were assigned 1 poem each and therefore we had to understand it and collect things based on whatever we understood from the poem.

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The Sideboard

It is a high, carved sideboard made of oak.

The dark old wood, like old folks, seems kind;

Its drawers are open, and its odours soak

The darkness with the scent of strong old wine.

Its drawers are full, a final resting place

For scented, yellowed linens, scraps of clothes

Foe wives or children, worn and faded bows,

Grandmothers' collars made of figured lace;

There you will find old medals, locks of grey

Or yellow hair, and portraits, and a dried bouquet

Whose perfume mingles with the smell of fruit.

- O sideboard of old, you know a great deal more

And could tell us your tales, yet you stand mute

As we slowly open your old dark door.

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After collecting objects I made an installation. The installation was about how I have turned these hard solid metal objects into soft objects by cutting, slicing and cracking them.

Installation.

Text.

Then we moved on the next stage, writing texts on these installations we made.

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Constantly struggling to enter but then realizing that the slit is too narrow to pass through it, a cave like opening yet again too small to crawl into. A rusty, uneven copper surface that breaks into a crater like ceiling with its jagged edge and the tiny pieces of it hanging as dried leaves of the tree which are just about to fall off.

The slice of light pierces through the split across ceiling that reaches center of space invading the dark room. The circular walls filled with the black material dripping down forming strange 3D murals all around by itself having various grades of blackness in it. It all together feels a burnt landscape.

Smooth edges of this little circular piece with soft metal brush strokes going upwards. Trying to go upwards but slipping right away. A tiny section of it chipping off just like peeling the skin of a banana. And falling as its a part of some fruit.

Smell of kerosene and soot is all round, walking through it, gives a sense of dark cavern with shear walls and fungus growing from different areas.

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Drawings.

Next stage was the drawings. I experimented with the paper by pouring coffee on the paper, scratching, cutting, rubbing the paper after pouring water on it etc.