DigiPoems exhibition “Beauty and Chaos”: Poetry turns into pictures
A DigiPoems exhibition titled “Beauty and Chaos” was hosted at the Arcadia Gallery in Coventry. 12 artists from Coventry and Southern Africa teamed up virtually during lockdown to create art pieces through digital illustrations, animation, and poetry. Six poems were turned into ninety-second visual digital pieces.
The collaboration was commissioned by the British Council earlier this year and was supported by Writing West Midlands, BBC Contains Strong Language and Coventry UK City of Culture 2021.
The exhibition title was chosen by the participating artists as a description of the world in which they create their art. The pieces are full of colours, ideas and different styles and crossed continents to be in Coventry.
DigiPoems is a programme supported by the British Council that provides the opportunity for artists from Southern Africa and the UK to connect, collaborate, share skills and find new audiences.
The DigiPoems exist in the virtual world and are usually shared only on screen, but they were brought to the Arcadia gallery by Coventry Artspace in a physical form as well.
About Coventry Artspace
Coventry Artspace is a charity organisation that runs arts projects and events and provide services to visual artists that live or work in Coventry and the surrounding area. They work on providing affordable spaces for visual artists to work and exhibit in, and opportunities for their development.
The curator, Ije, shared that when putting the exhibition together, she wanted to make such use of the space that people can engage with the pieces rather than just to look at the screens. They had still images of the videos and the poems printed and put at different heights around the gallery so people with impairments could also engage with the pieces.
“For me, it was important to bring aspects of the work into a more tangible, physical setting so that equal experience and encounter was given to the poetry as well as to the visuals.”
The art gallery worked along with Coventry city hosts, who provided information to the public and increased interest in the exhibition.
Coventry-based poet, John Bernard, was paired with a Botswanan self-taught digital artist Refilwe Bantle Wale. The whole collaboration was done via WhatsApp because of the COVID-19 restrictions then.
The pieces featured in the exhibition were strongly connected with the pandemic and the difficult times humanity has been going through, but John shared that with his poem he wanted to reflect on the difficulties people encounter in their daily life.
“I wanted to use the darkness of a difficult situation to formulate this ideology that there is hope at the end of a dark situation. It teaches you to analyse your actions, because when everything is smooth sometimes you forget to analyse things and to reflect. “
The pieces are still available to watch online at the Comexposed website. Comexposed is an organisation in Zimbabwe, co-founded by Eugene Mapondera, one of the six poets featured in “Beauty and Chaos”.
Artists featured in the exhibition include:
Refilwe Bantle Wale (Botswana), Neo “Pako” Ramathinyane (South Africa), Dana Chis (UK), Tavonga Shumbanhete (Zimbabwe), Kudakwashe Rwizi (Zimbabwe) and Mudiwa Kimberely Marasa (Zimbabwe). The artists will work with six poets Andrea Mbarushimana (UK), Aysar Ghassan (UK), John Bernard (UK), Lorna Zita (Mozambique), Musenga “MessenJah” Katongo (Zambia) and Prudence Delah Dube (Zimbabwe).