Raising the Voice: Sculptural and Spoken Narratives from the Flat Sheet

This exposition explores ideas of narrative and storytelling through sculptures and texts raised from a flat sheet, a kind of visual and spoken poetry which is both particular and multiple. In this paper, the key area of investigation will be the relationship between sculptural and spoken narratives in my practice. This is engaged with in four main areas:

• The flat sheet and the fold as sites for storytelling
• Multiplicities inherent to storytelling
• Architecturality and the space between bodies and buildings
• Words, text and the voice, and their relationship to sculpture

I explore the role of the architectural in the space between sculptural and spoken narratives, both of which are forms that begin with a flat sheet. The research also looks at how one might write about art in order to expand understanding but not reduce it to one meaning, writing around or through objects so as to leave gaps for the imagination and other narratives. The importance of the voice in the telling of these narratives is investigated, as well as the relationship between bodies and buildings.