Cleavemark Drive
2014, Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts, St. Louis, MO
Cleavemark Drive. is a collaborative, multimedia installation between poet/artist Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer and visual artist Cheryl Wassenaar.
The installation is based on Schlaifer's book Cleavemark, a group of poems which elegize a familial loss through the exploration of domestic spaces. Wassenaar visually reinterprets the text throughout the gallery in cut vinyl. Fragments of the poems move throughout the space—on walls, windows, and floors. These typographical arrangements provide narrative context as well as a sense of sound, as text appears in both muted and highly dense layers.
The installation also includes sculptural elements by Schlaifer. Combining a variety of raw household materials, including sugar, salt, and soap, with vintage found objects, Schlaifer explores the processes of accretion and excretion as an analog to the persistent experience of loss. On one wall, sugar-encrusted kitchen implements hang like family pictures above stacks of cast sugar bags. Opposite this, a salt-crystalline easy chair rests uneasily in front of an expanse of whispered text. Inside the closet, the viewer is confronted by a mass of golden wooden spools embedded in fragrant soap. Two sound elements, drawn from details in the poems, further activate the space. In the back room, train whistles, barking dogs, clattering dishes, and readying storms beckon. In the front room, a sequence of hymns and bible passages leak from a cabinet-style radio.
The combination of these elements draws on sensory information that is specific to the poet’s memories, but also part of our collective sense of nostalgia and childhood.
The entire collection of poems, Cleavemark, can be found http://www.boaatpress.com/store-limited-editions/cleavemark-by-stephanie-ellis-schlaifer
The installation is based on Schlaifer's book Cleavemark, a group of poems which elegize a familial loss through the exploration of domestic spaces. Wassenaar visually reinterprets the text throughout the gallery in cut vinyl. Fragments of the poems move throughout the space—on walls, windows, and floors. These typographical arrangements provide narrative context as well as a sense of sound, as text appears in both muted and highly dense layers.
The installation also includes sculptural elements by Schlaifer. Combining a variety of raw household materials, including sugar, salt, and soap, with vintage found objects, Schlaifer explores the processes of accretion and excretion as an analog to the persistent experience of loss. On one wall, sugar-encrusted kitchen implements hang like family pictures above stacks of cast sugar bags. Opposite this, a salt-crystalline easy chair rests uneasily in front of an expanse of whispered text. Inside the closet, the viewer is confronted by a mass of golden wooden spools embedded in fragrant soap. Two sound elements, drawn from details in the poems, further activate the space. In the back room, train whistles, barking dogs, clattering dishes, and readying storms beckon. In the front room, a sequence of hymns and bible passages leak from a cabinet-style radio.
The combination of these elements draws on sensory information that is specific to the poet’s memories, but also part of our collective sense of nostalgia and childhood.
The entire collection of poems, Cleavemark, can be found http://www.boaatpress.com/store-limited-editions/cleavemark-by-stephanie-ellis-schlaifer
Cleavemark Dr. from Criticalbonnet on Vimeo.
