Month: <span>February 2015</span>

a lesson for the independent?
is everything a reflection of everything else?
are meaning and metaphor everywhere we look?
any ramifications for you in this tale?

Absence & Presence, the print aspect of the project al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, has exercised my cognitive and creative faculties for nearly ten months now: a bit slow on the uptake I finally recognised I was stuck and needed to ask for help (thank you Angie B.) Reaching out is rarely my first port of call, and though independence is often a strength, carried too far it can become just the opposite.

…and thus was I able to realise the prints

Absence & Presence from Lilla Duignan on Vimeo

The whole  process was rather magical, like being in a laboratory or photographic darkroom where the image reveals itself to you: with a sense of flow like a scroll, lines appeared on the paper that looked like book pages, and subtle gradations of white ink rolled across the paper in bands; this was more like it, more truly aligned with the nature of the project, accompanied too by a good dose of the serendipity intrinsic to my usual way of working.

I am glad that Absence and Presence has at last manifested visually, and reflects some of the depth inherent in such a serious subject, yet one so difficult for me to articulate in words alone.

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