Reverse Ekphrasis Art Show

Art and Poetry have a longstanding collaborative tradition in Ekphrasis [ek fray sis], the practice of writing a vivid description or poem in response to a work of art. Reverse Ekphrasis becomes the practice of creating visual representations in response to the written word. Artists can focus on sensory language and metaphor to inspire their visual artworks. This show will increase accessibility to literature by creating a new path of readership through the translation of literature into visual art.

The show is open to the public and will take place in Orlando, Florida in April 27, 2024 featuring local and national artists of various mediums. Following the show, photographs of artwork will be on display here as a virtual gallery. 

Alive and dead, we are commerce.

“When Her Body is a Battleground” recognizes the vulnerable position of Indigenous women and girls in a settler colonial state. The imperial project that employed the theory of manifest destiny to justify genocide and the theft of Indigenous homelands, continues to threaten Indigenous cultural and spiritual autonomy. Although the military conflict over land—a conflict ironically called the “Indian wars”—may have passed in this country, the dehumanization of Indigenous peoples along with the possessive mindset of colonialism renders even the bodies of Indigenous women as objects of commerce.  The stance of capitalism barters our freedom, our dignity, as well as our flesh and bones. Alive and dead, we are commerce. Our bodies become the site of violence.

Re-humanize our relations.

Imagery of the poem links the MMIW crisis to the specifics of loss—girl bodies, the searches, the anger of families, broken communities. It emphasizes the everydayness of this horror—the “habit” of funerals, how we dress and sing for the murdered, the callousness with which bodies are abandoned like deer slaughtered along roadsides.

Recognizing the systems that perpetuate.

The church, social service agencies, the legal system, prisons all appear or are alluded to in the poem. Each has failed in specific ways to help protect Indigenous women or failed Indigenous victims. Is our sorrow extravagant? Have we brought this on ourselves? Is justice meted equally? We recognize those who carry out the destruction or endorse it as like the cannibal giant of myth, as evil spirits.

 Survivance.

Irony introduces small moments of survival humor.

In its close, the poem gestures to the strength and solidarity of women. When stand with and support one another against patriarchy, we sing ourselves strong.

Kimberly Blaeser, past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and founding director of In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets, is a writer, photographer, and scholar. She is the author of five poetry collections, including Copper Yearning,

Apprenticed to Justice, and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance. An Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, Blaeser is an enrolled member of White Earth Nation who grew up on the reservation. A Professor Emerita at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2024 Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit

College, and MFA faculty member for Institute of American Indian Arts, her accolades include a Lifetime Achievement Award from Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. Her book Ancient Light is forthcoming from University of Arizona Press in 2024.