VIDEO

This audio guide is a part of a 'flat-pack' workshop commissioned by Grand Union gallery for their summer 2024 exhibition. 'Love is Real, and it's Inside of My Computer'. Taking the form of a guided walk through the grounds, and a base map of its landmarks, participants are invited to plot their emotional and sensory response to the place. By creating a visual response to the location, participants are highlighting the multitude of ways that different people experience the same space. The map is available at leemackenziepoet.com/winterbournegardens, and here are the rules of the workshop: 1) Listen to audio guide as you walk around Winterbourne Gardens; make notes in response. 2) Print out base map; cut and arrange illustrations into a map that represents your understanding of the gardens. 3) Use your notes to embellish the map - add phrases, drawings, thoughts and routes. 4) Share @poetrymaps / @granduniongallery

The Netherton Creative Map project delivered two workshops, and produced an interactive digital archive focused on the district of Netherton, Dudley. Using St Peter's Church as its base, the workshops used the surrounding green spaces and canal paths as inspiration for creative responses by our chosen community groups. These responses are housed in an interactive digital archive: an online, interactive map of the area that utilises participant’s artworks as well as video footage and poetry created by the two lead artists. It will celebrate local green spaces, serve as a digital time capsule for the district’s creativity, and support the people of Netherton to creatively imagine the region’s future.

The Netherton Creative Map project delivered two workshops, and produced an interactive digital archive focused on the district of Netherton, Dudley. Using St Peter's Church as its base, the workshops used the surrounding green spaces and canal paths as inspiration for creative responses by our chosen community groups. These responses are housed in an interactive digital archive: an online, interactive map of the area that utilises participant’s artworks as well as video footage and poetry created by the two lead artists. It will celebrate local green spaces, serve as a digital time capsule for the district’s creativity, and support the people of Netherton to creatively imagine the region’s future.

With reference to 12-month research period at the British Library, Lee Mackenzie explores the artistic practice of Poetry Mapping. He discusses: the development of the practice as it relates to engaging with archival material; how the two media relate and complement each other; the subtext(s) of maps and mapping, and the issues that arise when deciding whether to map or not to map. Undertaken for the Eccles Centre Summer Scholars 2022 programme at the end of Lee's research for his Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship. Thanks to: Huw Rowlands; Leighton Rees; Katy Hawkins, and Mark Dennis.

‘Pigeon’ is a poetry map. Redditch, Worcestershire - 07.03.21 Poem by Lee Mackenzie Video by Adam Tyers Sound by Leighton Rees Supported by Arts Council England. For more information, visit Leemackenziepoet.com

M.F.P. is a music poem about Hope. Words, Visuals and Voice: Lee Mackenzie Music: Leighton Rees

Jewels in the Dark is a multimedia video installation combining video art, music and poetry. It has been commission by the Psychology Department of Durham University and it seeks to encourage reflection upon the central tenets of the Athena Swan Charter: a UK-based Advance HE charter committed to gender equality and success for all people within the higher education sector. It begins and ends with a central message: ‘If we exclude a person’s gaze we view the world with one less heart; an equal betrayed for more jewels in the dark’ This message takes the form of poetry arranged as a pangrammatic window: across the three lines, each letter of the English language is used, signalling the benefits to an inclusive approach. The content of the message asks the audience to consider the nature of exclusion; what is lost when a single view is removed from consideration? The answer is then developed through a series of eight narrated poetry vignettes. Using visual imagery, audio soundscapes and psychological techniques, each vignette develops into a multi-sensory poem devised from words selected from the piece’s central message. The layering of imagery, and the placement and animation of text, references visual perception techniques, illusions, image processing, subliminal messages and colour associations, to both purposefully contradict and enhance the meaning of the text. The visual, audio and lexical readability is obscured, intended to disorientate, with increasing deconstruction of the screen, challenging the viewer to question the content and their understanding of it. The truth of multiple perspectives are presented, in order to elicit the questioning of preconceived ideas and stereotypes, highlighting the consequences of exclusion. Jewels in the Dark opens us up to the possibility of a continuum of experience, as opposed to clearly categorised viewpoints. By combining figurative footage with that of the natural world, and more abstract imagery, there is an implied ambiguity of scale, leading us to notions of unity and connectivity from the microcosm to the macrocosm. The accompanying soundscape leads the mind via the body: breathing, beating, speaking and finally, dreaming towards the piece’s climax: an immersive love song dedicated to Earth, its workers and the many jewels in the dark still waiting to be seen.

Promotion Footage taken at Writing and Art Walking Workshop, 'Walking is Broken', Durham, March 2019. Visuals and Workshop: Alexandra Carr - www.alexandracarr.co.uk Workshop: Lee Mackenzie - www.leemackenziepoet.com

Recorded @ The Greenway Garden Arts + Music Festival, June 19, 2019. Poem: Lee Mackenzie - www.leemackenziepoet.com