Fi has been invited to create site specific concrete poetry at the University of Derby. This is in response and in celebration of poet Eugen Gomringer's work. Seen as the father of 'concrete poetry', he visited the University in September, 2011 to talk about his work. Mr Gomringer, 86, who is Swiss, opened an exhibition entitled Concept as Concrete Form: Visual Poetry, Texts and Typography and gave a talk on The Inter-relation Between Concrete Art and Poetry.
'Concrete poetry' is a literary form where the arrangement of a poem's words on the printed page is considered to be as important as the poem itself. For example, Mr Gomringer's own poem Wind shows the letters W-I-N-D scattered as if by a wind.
His visit to Derby was part of a rare UK tour to talk about his half-century long career as a poet. The tour was arranged by Rodger Brown, a Programme Leader in the University's School of Art and Design, and the Research Group for Artists Publications (RGAP), formerly based at the University but now at the Yorkshire Artspace in Sheffield.
The exhibition runs from mid-November 2011 and a limited edition catalogue of the work will become available.
"This piece by Fi plays homage to Stuart Mill’s own “Homage to Wyndam Lewis”. Playing on how we read and perceive the meaning of words, it also takes it’s inspiration from Alfred Korzybski’s statement, “the map is not the territory, the words is not the thing. This is an eloquent musing on the mutability of language and how it constantly remains open in a state of flux".
