The Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies (CCWLS) and the College of Fine Arts and Design (CFAD) hosted Open Forms, a talk on bringing poetry out from the pages with curator and writer Roy Voragen on April 30, 2024 at the Beato Angelico Building’s Main Gallery.
Voragen spoke about the relationship among language, body, and city, linking his practices as a poet and curator to show connections between the visual arts and writing.
For Voragen, artists and writers must engage with the city and its languages and use them as material to create new modalities and fresh expressions of art. “I invite you to make things. Even [in creating] meaningless stories, you do creativity. Even meaning is form […] try to meet the city, try to see how it will affect your body,” Voragen said.
Voragen has shared his art and craft in the neighboring Southeast Asian countries. He served as a curator of 1335MABINI Gallery in Ermita, Manila from 2017-2019.
“Open Forms” is part of the CCWLS International Writers and Scholars Lecture and Conversation Series, whose lineup consists of Filipino writers and scholars based abroad. Among them were Ninotchka Rosca, Sabina Murray, Gina Apostol, Miguel Syjuco, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, R. Zamora Linmark, Eugene Gloria, Marivi Soliven, John Blanco, Lara Stapleton, M. Evelina Galang, Fidelito Cortes, Nerissa Balce, Amalia Bueno and Robert Nery; and foreign nationals, like Robin Hemley Tim Tomlinson, Dennis Haskell, Xu Xi, and Yukari Yoshihara.
Open Forms will serve as a space for students to explore experimental or hybrid poetry, paired with visual and other forms such as video, photography, collages, and performances.
The event was curated by Assoc. Prof. Nerisa Del Carmen Guevara of CCWLS and the Faculty of Arts and Letters and Assoc. Prof Mary Ann Venturina-Bulanadi, PhD of the College of Fine Arts and Design.
