The NEE MISS / NEMESIS* show curated by Makyla Curtis was a one evening event at the gallery space, Development Air, in Newmarket, Auckland, on October 24th 2013. The show was an exploration of Kelly Malone’s poetic language play, selected by Makyla Curtis. The event encouraged people to look at and question the codes of language and poetry – this is the ambition of Kelly Malone’s poetry.
Makyla Curtis’ focus as curator was to have the show enable two distinct kinds of engagement with Kelly Malone’s poetry. The first was to engage with the poetry itself – what the poetryis saying, what it is suggesting about language, code, communication and identity. The second was the involvement within the poetry – the opportunity to be part of the poetry’s action – to speak it, breathe it and print it.
Through recording Kelly’s poetic approach of Morse code via breath and daf drum, these recordings were made available at listening posts on the night and laid over film footage of the Heidelberg platen press. The machine itself breathed and thrust, first the invites for the show, then Kelly’s poem ‘Just a dash – or two – away from realisation’ both set and produced by Makyla. The OM ( --- -- ) that accompanies the title of Kelly’s ‘Realisation’ poem was performed by Kelly and her Breath Choir (one breather for each dash): Michelle Johannson, Bernadette Malone, John Radford and Lisa Samuels.
In addition to Kelly’s Breath Choir at three listening posts were two of Kelly’s poems:
Makyla mixed and produced from the recording of Kelly and Makyla reading
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Makyla mixed and produced the recording of Kelly playing Morse with her daf drum
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also the show included:
- A sculptural piece gallery 2 chase set up gallery 2 betty created by Makyla of Kelly’s poem a miss as good as a mile using the letterpress chase set by Makyla and reflected in a mirror
- A light omitting OM in Morse code ( --- -- )
- The Heidelberg platen press printing Kelly’s ‘realisation’ poem, set, filmed and produced by Makyla overlaid with the recording of Kelly playing OM in Morse on her daf drum(--- --)
- The adana press set by Makyla, printing Kelly’s poem Repetitive Again – ‘nothing is the ever [sic] same / nothing is ever the same twice’[ image 1, 2, 3]
- The ’zine, NEE MISS / NEMESIS outlining the show’s programme and offering a selection of Kelly’s work, designed and printed by Makyla
- A collective reading and breath interpretation of a miss as good as a mile directed by Makyla from the exhibited print by Makyla.
- Kelly reading an annunciation
In curating the show, among the many visions of Makyla that were in accordance with Kelly’s work, was the repetition of OM – the hypnotic and meditative notion of code and meaning – through various medias. Makyla expanded on Kelly’s use of code, or MO -- --- / modus operandi to reverberate visually and in performance, as the curatorial focus of the NEE MISS / NEMESIS show. The iterative aspect of the use of OM, along with other (repetitive) presentations of Kelly’s work, encouraged listeners, viewers, and readers to think of the affect of language, how malleable language is, its power to shape and be shaped into anything, it’s ubiquity of seeming repetition and highlighting the notion that everyday language is not just a set of conventions. Such contemplations of the complexity of language Makyla feels most alive when sharing with others, and Kelly, most alive when seeing and enacting them.
The curating of Makyla Curtis’ show was only possible through the support of the following people: Kelly Malone, Alan & Liz Curtis, Richard Kearney, Mike Rothwell, Lucy Meyle, Tessa Stubbing, Lisa Samuels, Allan Smith, Michelle Johannson, John Radford, Bernadette Malone, Graham Judd (GTO Printers), The MOTAT Print Shop & Julian McKinnon (Development Air).
Makyla Curtis and Kelly Malone would like to acknowledge Brian Flaherty and Michele Leggott for their support in making NEE MISS / NEMESIS available on NZEPC.
The NEE MISS / NEMESIS show was created in line with the Poetry off the Page paper in which Makyla Curtis was at the time enrolled.
* Nee Miss / Nemesis is a term Kelly Malone uses that resonates from her ‘Miss’ - I Miss Me / MIMESIS phrase.
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