In Other Words
In Other Words
In this exhibition, Phantoms in the Front Yard with the long-running relationship between letter and images. Taking the maxim "as goes poetry so goes painting", each Phantoms member collaborated with a literary artist, and used their words as a starting point and inspiration for the development of their work.
As his contribution to the show, Senetchko chose moments from Ernest Hemingway's A Movable Feast for 3 of his works, and collaborated directly with spoken word poet Shayne Koyczan or 2010 Winter Olympic opening ceremony fame to develop a painting from his poem Spandex Won't Save Us. The text of the poem is below.
Spandex Won’t Save Us
They gave David Suzuki a spandex costume
strapped him into a catapult
then pointed to one of the larger holes in the ozone layer
as if to say
“fix it”
and despite david susuki’s protests
that this was (at best)
a crazy and desperate plan
that had not been properly thought out
they launched him
and we all watched in amazement
as he flew upwards
and distance pulled out its best magic trick
making him smaller and smaller
until eventually he vanished
so we launched fireworks
and ate hot dogs
we smiled
we celebrated our indomitable spirit
the government straightened out the FDA
then handed out cures for HIV and morning after pills
hippies held the hands of rednecks
and despite their obvious differences
found a common ground
in their love of not taking showers
it was beautiful
but david suzuki never came back
so we lowered our heads
and set our cell phones to vibrate for a whole minute
in acknowledgement of the sacrifice we had made
later
we danced.
By Shayne Koyczan
