Final Project Proposal

This project revolves around Khaled Mattawa’s statement that “imagination is the backbone of memory.” I propose to create a 15-page poetry portfolio of ecological ekphrastic poems inspired by art in the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art, The Phillips Collection of Modern Art, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, and The National Gallery of Art. These poems will trace ecological tropes from works of art ranging from 1850s to present, and the aim is to emphasize the creative agency of nonhuman beings in art. Through the process of ekphrasis—or “confronting the art”—I will explore the imaginative portrayals of nature in art to better understand the memory of nature and nonhuman beings through the eyes of artists. For this project I will be writing actual ekphrastic poems, rather than notional exphrastic poems. They will vary from ruminative to solely descriptive, but the thread between all of them will be the examination of the natural world and natural bodies.

            While I will focus on a broad array of works of art, two particular temporary exhibits I look forward to exploring are Yayoi Kasuma’s Infinity Mirrors (located at the Hirshhorn) and The National Gallery of Art’s The Urban Scene: 1920-1950. Kasuma’s exhibit is a mixture of lighting fixtures and sculptures—this will allow for an interesting dialogue about the purpose of light and colors and the affect nonhuman beings have upon the human eye. The Urban Scene mitigates the harsh textures of cityscapes with the softness of natural scenes, and this will allow for an evocative discussion of the natural world and industrialization.