Still Looking Zine - Tate St Ives

The Still Looking zine was part of a Tate Collective Producer project. We were tasked with creating a gallery resource aimed at giving visitors transgressive ways of engaging with artwork. Our brief was to encourage visitors to spend longer in the exhibition spaces and ultimately to give them the tools to spend more meaningful time in the galleries.

One of my poems A Blank Canvas Leaves Room for Colour was selected for publication in the zine. It explores the overlap between mindfulness and art - how headspace can fuel creativity after taking the time to pause in a calming and inspiring space.

The zine also features artwork made over a number of weeks in response to different prompts/approaches to engaging with exhibitions - whether in the gallery space or from home.

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A Blank Space Leaves Room for Colour

Your mind's a scribble

of charcoal swirls,

turning into a muddle

beginning to blur

The lines overlap, interweave and tangle

until the shape is lost,

in a smudged grey mangle

of dirty. carbon. dust.

Pause.

The gallery space

is there to wander,

and take at your own pace

with time to ponder

So have a peruse

just to clear your head,

and find a muse

to think of instead

Observing artwork

erases your mind's clutter,

and a blank canvas

leaves room for colour...

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