Minutia exhibit focuses on the little things

CENTRE OF ATTENTION. Penn Kemp, Western’s writer-in-residence, combined sound poetry with Calgary artist Robert Kelly’s Minutia with a special performance.

Robert Kelly’s Minutia installation is currently on display at the McIntosh Gallery, located on campus. The installation explores the power of words.
The word minutia, which means a minute or minor detail, serves as the inspiration of the exhibit — details we hardly notice and the lack of appreciation for the profoundness of the little things.
Kelly, a Calgary-based artist, asks us to consider the minutiae that make up the fabric of our existence. He was motivated by an excerpt from a letter written by a Chinese immigrant to his wife in which he encouraged her to join him in the new country. It read, “the first time I heard the sound of a page turning.”
“I found this sentence fragment quite profound. I turn pages every day,” Kelly said. “Yet I was completely unaware of the sound of pages turning.”
Kelly was so moved he sought to express this uncharacteristic awareness in his art. The result is the Minutia project, a sculptural installation comprised of 11 books arranged in a 30-foot circle, each resting on a lectern. Each book contains one of the words from the statement it seeks to isolate and express artistically.
Penn Kemp, Western’s writer-in-residence, offered her alternative view of the display through an exploration of sound poetry on Oct. 8.
“[Kelly] asked me to do a collaboration with him on sounding the exhibit. He wanted to lift the words off the page — out of the book so to speak,” Kemp said of her involvement with the project.
Kemp enjoyed the energy that arose from the event and was pleased with the turn-out of the evening.
“It was quite an eclectic gathering,” Kemp said.
Among those in attendance were an opera singer, sound performers and poets. Each person contributed to the uplifting and inspirational atmosphere that emerged — becoming a part of the poetry.
A playwright, publisher and sound poet, Kemp explained the concept of sound poetry as playing with sound.
“I’m a poet but I love to lift the words off the page as much as I possibly can,” she explained. “When the emotion gets too much to just be contained in words I explode it to sound.”
Her own personal inspiration for her sound poetry comes from life experiences like giving birth and watching her children learn to speak.
Kemp has created many sound orchestras but usually with her own work. She is especially proud of the support given to her form of art.
“There’s big tradition in Canada of sound poetry,” she said.
Minutia will be exhibited at the McIntosh gallery until Nov. 1.