When I found a zoology treatise on an Italian flea market, I knew how to give it a new life. The illustrations of the 1928 book would be transformed or included into pictures with a new meaning.
Books with right and left pages are like brains with right and left hemispheres. To push the metaphor a little further, I considered that the left part of the book would reflect the more, rational, structured and linear elements. That’s where I would write short four-word poetry, mainly composed of single syllable words. Like mini-haikus, without rhyme but with an acoustic flow of sounds and a partial meaning that the reader can expand, imagine or reshape.
The pages on the right hand side of the treatise contain spontaneous, artistic and emotional elements that are somehow linked to the poetry on the opposite page but would leave room for bridging to new connections.
The treatise was originally written by the German zoologist Richard Hertwig. The version that I am working with is it’s Italian translation, whereas my mini-Haikus are in English, French and Dutch. Imagination without borders.
