Residencies & Exhibitions
Jerwood Visual Arts Writer in Residence: a couple of intimate documents, no.2
1 April, 2015
Marianna Simnett, ‘Blood’, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.
2. A Letter to Blood
Of course you begin with a red building, B. You abject Bloody Chamber. A rectangular concrete shell that pulses with colour, as rosy and sore as cow meat. I can tell you’re a film about childhood because there’s a mickey mouse painted on the outside wall.
But it looks cold up in those mountains, as if my veins would go blue there. Do vampires live there? What about wolves? I tend to write down authors names and books I’ve read when I experience art, as a way of thinking into it when I’m stuck or confused. So I wrote down ‘Angela Carter’ and the catch-all phrase ‘Magic Realism’ when I watched you the first time, as you open with a fairytale landscape of schoolchildren reading from M’s script in an Eastern European accent. My bag is heavy / and my feet are tired. At least these kids are wrapped up warm. They’re helping each other learn to read, orally, but leading us through the story too, like the comforting chant of a night-time chapter.
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