I recently made a set of images for my university course based on an extract of a given text. I ended up drifting quite far from the original brief that I was given, and used it more as a jumping off point to inspire my work, although I really enjoyed reading it :)
I've not completely finished yet, but I'm going to try to use my photo-illustrations to make a little visual novel based around the text, and hopefully bind a booklet with the bits and pieces I'm happiest with.
Here's the extract that I was given to work off of:
A Natural Disaster - Lydia Davis
In our home here by the rising sea we will not last much longer. The cold and the damp will certainly get us in the end,
because it is no longer possible to leave: the cold has cracked open the only road away from here, the sea has risen
and filled the cracks down by the marsh where it is low, has sunk and left crystals lining the cracks, has risen again
higher and made the road impassable.
The sea washes up through the pipes into our basins, and our drinking water is brackish. Mollusks have appeared in
our front yard and our garden and we can’t walk without crushing their shells at every step. At every high tide the sea
covers our land, leaving pools, when it ebbs, among our rosebushes and in the furrows of our rye field. Our seeds have
been washed away; the crows have eaten what few were left.
Now we have moved into the upper rooms of the house and stand at the window watching the fish flash through the
brunches of our peach tree. An eel looks out from below our wheelbarrow.
What we wash and hang out the upstairs window to dry freezes: our shirts and pants make strange writhing shapes on
the line. What we wear is always damp now, and the salt rubs against our skin until we are red and sore. Much of the
day, now, we stay in bed under heavy, sour blankets; the wooden walls are wet through; the sea enters the cracks at
the windowsills and trickles down to the floor. Three of us have died of pneumonia and bronchitis at different hours of
the morning before daybreak. There are three left, and we are all weak, can’t sleep but lightly, can’t think but with
confusion, don’t speak, and hardly see light and dark anymore, only dimness and shadow.
A Natural Disaster - Lydia Davis
In our home here by the rising sea we will not last much longer. The cold and the damp will certainly get us in the end,
because it is no longer possible to leave: the cold has cracked open the only road away from here, the sea has risen
and filled the cracks down by the marsh where it is low, has sunk and left crystals lining the cracks, has risen again
higher and made the road impassable.
The sea washes up through the pipes into our basins, and our drinking water is brackish. Mollusks have appeared in
our front yard and our garden and we can’t walk without crushing their shells at every step. At every high tide the sea
covers our land, leaving pools, when it ebbs, among our rosebushes and in the furrows of our rye field. Our seeds have
been washed away; the crows have eaten what few were left.
Now we have moved into the upper rooms of the house and stand at the window watching the fish flash through the
brunches of our peach tree. An eel looks out from below our wheelbarrow.
What we wash and hang out the upstairs window to dry freezes: our shirts and pants make strange writhing shapes on
the line. What we wear is always damp now, and the salt rubs against our skin until we are red and sore. Much of the
day, now, we stay in bed under heavy, sour blankets; the wooden walls are wet through; the sea enters the cracks at
the windowsills and trickles down to the floor. Three of us have died of pneumonia and bronchitis at different hours of
the morning before daybreak. There are three left, and we are all weak, can’t sleep but lightly, can’t think but with
confusion, don’t speak, and hardly see light and dark anymore, only dimness and shadow.
I think it's written in a really interesting way, and I love the surrealist elements of the text. One of my classmates Amelie took this as an interpretation of how children process traumatic events, and how often we use make-believe and story telling to understand these world altering realities, which I found really interesting.
Personally what I took away from the text was its distinct sense of tone and world building, and I've tried my best to capture this distinct emotive language visually.
LITERATURE AND ART ARE SO COOL!! :DD
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