Jennie Guy
Selected Crônicas
With as little vocal or physical direction as possible I used video and sound recordings of a cast of willing readers set in a remote location to reenact the crônicas of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, originally published in the Jornal do Brasil between 1967 and 1973.
This film was screened as part of I AM NOT A POET, a festival curated by David Berridge (VerySmallKitchen) and Mirja Koponen at the Totalkunst Gallery in Edinburgh on August 18th, 2011. This two-week festival explored connections of language, writing, and art practice, and runs from August 7th – 21st, 2011.
Selected Crônicas was also projected as part of a joint event with Tamarin Norwood, on the 19th August, when it was also the starting point for a discussion on language and art practice involving myself, Tamarin Wood, Magdalen Chua, and Gerry Smith.
Click here to view the video on David Berridge’s site.
To accompany the film, I wrote the following Crônica of my own, which was published in I AM NOT A POET’s Assembling Publication:
“Two girls in a Japanese restaurant.
One in charge being more fluent with Sushi and such food. So she is trying to make sure the other is comfortable by explaining how nice this dish is and that dish you might not like, whilst still retaining sympathetic superiority.
When the waiter asks for their drinks order, two Sapporo rolls easily and fluently out of the girl in charge’s mouth.
Sorry, we have no Sapporo, we have Asahi and Kirin and Oron.
The friend, the one that isn’t in charge, casually asks the waiter, which one is better do you think?
Her friend, the one in charge looks a little upset but gathers back her momentum over lunch, nearly.”