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Polaroid Poets at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery
Poet and artist Maud Sulter
Poet and artist Maud Sulter
Polaroid Poets at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery
26 May 2004

Poet and artist Maud Sulter's latest exhibition, About/Face, is showing at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery from 11 June to 28 July. It is a series of ten huge polaroid portraits of contemporary Scottish poets, including the Scottish laureate Edwin Morgan, Don Paterson, the winner of the 2004 T S Eliot and Whitbread poetry prizes, and three of Scotland's most popular women poets, Valerie Gillies, Liz Niven and Janet Paisley who will be reading at the Museum as part of the exhibition programme on 28 July.

The outsize photos, measuring 20" by 24", were taken on a unique Polaroid machine brought over from Prague in the summer of 2002; working in Edinburgh, Maud Sulter had just the one shot at composing her portraits, like any other Polaroid photographer, The results are crisp, richly-coloured portraits, all shot straight on from the shoulders up against a dark background, but each one intriguingly different from the others.

School pupils will be writing their own portrait poems, inspired by the polaroids, at workshops in the Museum. In the exhibition booklet (£1), the poets all answer questions about portrait poems and about their own faces to help the workshop pupils, and kick-start the imagination of all visitors to the exhibition. What do they like least? 'The second small head that grows out the back (invisible in picture)' notes Don Paterson darkly. And best? Elegantly-whiskered Brian Johnstone nominates his moustache. But most have chosen their eyes, the most important part of any human face.

Through the Scottish Poetry Library with Scottish Arts Council funding, the exhibition has toured five venues in Scotland, with schools workshops and readings by some of the featured poets. The exhibition is accompanied by a bookshelf with copies of the poets' books and of their favourite poems by others about people and faces.

Just like snapshots and polaroids, these poets and the favourite poems they've nominated will catch moments that you will look at again and again, seeing new details you never noticed before, even finding odd resemblances between each other. Come and look through one of Scottish poetry's new family albums.

The exhibition is at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery and runs from 11 June - 28 July 2004, Monday-Saturday 0900-1700.

Reading on Wednesday 28 July, Inverness Museum and Art Gallery at 1800-1930hrs, Free (suggested donation of £3, or £2 concessions)

For more information contact Inverness Museum and Art Gallery on 01463 237114, or check out www.invernessmuseum.com


 

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