Reading Poetry, Burning Head
Year- 2020.
Materials- plaster of paris, life-casting wax sculpture, fire, thread, books, poetry.
Size- dimension variable with life-size body casting.
'Reading Poetry, Burning Head,' by Shohrab Jahan is a life-sized sculpture of a woman reading poetry, cast and constructed during a residency at the Makerere University Fine Arts Department.
The piece was shown as part of the Art, Archive, and Activism projects collaborative 'Temporary Exhibition' at the Uganda National Museum, Kampala, 2020, alongside work from Emilie Flower, Jim Joel, Ruth Kelly, and Susan Kiguli.
Inspiration
Poet Susan Kiguli, who was doing poetry- performance with a candle, I liked her poetry. I like the narration: Madness in a slippery train, contextually in a society with few middle-class leaves. Her poetry inspires me; my candle sculpture is melting in a permanent museum space like Susan and Ruth kelly's poetry melting in the air; I re-thought body-poverty- uncertainty. The body is a social taboo in my country, and I cannot produce the work. The work also reminds me of the Venus of Willendorf.
The Process
The sculpture was made from a cast of Oliver Naggayi (Olivia) who works for the Makerere University Fine Arts Department as a life model. The practice of making sculptures from nude models is discouraged in Chittagong, while in Uganda there are no restrictions regarding sculptural forms.
Breathing life
Into words
Which suddenly rise up [...]
Take shape
Become armies
The words become armies [...] Announcing themselves
As what we know but had forgotten Excerpt from ‘Reaching Within
Us to Beyond Us’,
by Susan Nalugwa Kiguli reads, 'Reaching within us to beyond us'. Ruth Kelly, Poetry Reading
