Installation with 36 boards (80×19 each), multiplex, wheel, grip tape, sticker, video loop.
This project is an appropriation of Sutardji Calzoum Bachri’s poem and credo. For him, poetry frees words of their meaning and is a return to the true use of words, that is a mantra. While this is true for the poem Belajar Membaca (Learning to Read), that frees their meaning, it also guides the reader through its sounds. When reading the poem, we realize that the words create relational meanings. I placed each word of the poem on a skateboard so that the words are scattered in the venue to be changed or compiled by the audience.
Additionally, there is a video loop including a similar idea, a stop motion video presenting some of the possibilities to mix the poem words. The video is installed in the corner of the exhibition room, with a mirror facing it, to reflect an illusion of the tv image, adding another perspective from which to look at the words.
Are the words in the shape of objects revealing back their meaning? Will they still shape a mantra? Is there still a rhyme? Let’s learn to read together.
