Writing (MA)
Esme Boggis
I'm an artist and writer based in London. Before starting the MA Writing course at the RCA, I completed a BA (Hons) in Art and Visual Culture at the University of the West of England and attended alternative graduate art school, School of the Damned. My writing has been published online and in print, including The Double Negative, Abstract Magazine and NOIT Journal. I've performed and exhibited in galleries across London including Flat Time House, SET, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation and Guest Projects, as well as Assembly House in Leeds, The Royal Standard in Liverpool and East Bristol Contemporary. In 2015, I was awarded the Spike Island Graduate Fellowship, followed by participating in Reitir – a month long collaborative residency in Siglufjörður, Iceland – in the summer of 2016.
Feature Image - Tongue Illustration, Henry Gray, Anatomy of the Human Body, (United States: Lea & Febiger, 1918), p.1128.
As both an artist and writer, my practice exists at the intersection of writing, performance and visual art. I’m interested in the slippery nature of language, objects, food and the body, and how each of these subjects both conflict and inform each other. Etymology is often the starting point of my research – as is immersing myself in each space I intend to write about. I use curiosity as a methodology which instigates research into the relationship of object and place. I’ve also long been interested in the performative and playful nature of food and how it acts as an emblem of culture and identity. The body, or a fictional interpretation of one, is often the site of unearthing personal histories.
Experimenting with different forms of writing is central to my practice and many of the texts I write take on the form of poetic and personal responses which work alongside essays or research-based texts. I think of writing as a similar process to making a sculpture or performance – language is turned into physical material, using words to articulate palpable texture.
My final major project, A Map of the Tongue, explores the tongue’s opposing and duplicitous meanings. Using the map as a model, I visited locations relating to the organ’s somatic and metaphorical qualities. The locations, including Smithfield Market, Dr. Johnson’s House and the Basilica of St.Anthony in Padua, act as points of meditation which probe deeper into the tongue’s conflicting connotations. Each journey elicited an unravelling of the tongue beyond the confines of its own preconceived borders or zones, to ask in what way does it move in the body but also through the world?
Other pieces included are Air Time which looks at attention, time and memory and Object Encounters which was written as a response to the idea of a body colliding with objects in a domestic space. Curdling was a performance which took place at Flat Time House in 2019 as part of MA Writing’s Playing Houses event and responded to the failures of interpreting both image and text from a German cookery book. A Mollusc Wanders follows the journey of an oyster through London’s past and present.
Research Images — Cooked Tongue, Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management/ Visitors Card, Basilica of St. Anthony, Padua/ Globe, The Tongue Hotel/ Taylors Bell Foundry Plaque/ Pocket Map of the cities of London and Westminster, William Roades
A Map of the Tongue sets out to explore the tongue’s opposing and duplicitous meanings both as a somatic and metaphorical entity. Using the map as a model, I journeyed to locations which the tongue had imprinted itself upon to examine the connection between both place and the strange other-worldly organ. The locations act as starting points for meditations on taste, autonomy, geographies, histories, sound and language, probing deeper into the members conflicting connotations. Poems sit between each location – chew, protrude, roll, loll, twist – which enact the organ’s constant anatomical movements. With each journey, the tongue roamed beyond the confines of its own preconceived borders or zones, spreading and reaching further into unknown space. An absurd and fantastical terrain is created asking the question of: in what way does the tongue move in the body, but also through the world?
Please click 'launch project' on the image above to read the first chapter, 'Smithfield Market'.
[1] Thomas Adams, ‘The Taming of the Tongue’, in The Works of Thomas Adams, Vol. 3, (London, 1622), pp. 10-22 (p.20).
Size:
15000 words
Attention Anthology, 2020 (Photo Credit: Ludovica Colacino)
Attention Anthology Launch, Morocco Bound Bookshop, 2020 (Photo Credit: Ludovica Colacino)
Air Time, Attention Anthology, 2020
Air Time, Attention Anthology, 2020
A fly buzzes, stops, starts again – attention is demanded for a moment, annoyance builds, but then the buzzing stops. It hides between the folds of lampshades or grasps onto the wall behind a wooden wardrobe. Interweaving the movement of a fly and memories of time and space, Air Time attempts to capture the essence of things which move and change without us even knowing.
