Poetry Loops: Polyphonic
Art and poetry have long been considered fruitful allies. Both share a structure, harmony and rhythm; both emerge from a desire to make something new out of the familiar, to capture a thought or an experience in a compelling way. Curated by London-based poet Simona Nastac, Polyphonic is a vivid interplay between these art forms, a coming together of written word with still and moving image that brings Romania’s best contemporary poetry to life with twenty animations created by visual artist Raluca Popa. Weaving together the image-making power of poetry with diverse animation techniques, the artist illustrated works by nine young Romanian poets of various ethnic backgrounds, who themselves use polyphony in their poetry by writing both in Romanian and their first language. The poets are Michael Astner, Andrei Dósa, Robert Gabriel Elekes, Matei Hutopila, Henriette Kemenes, Aleksandar Stoicovici, Livia Ștefan, Mihok Tamas, and Victor Țvetov.
All of the filmpoems have English subtitles.
Polyphonic is produced by the National Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest (www.mnlr.ro).