This video was created for Push the Envelope, an exhibition at Dynamo Project Space in Thessaloniki, Greece. It compiles fragments taken from a reflection on a pond, Sappho’s lyrical poetry, and alterations of Anne Carson’s English translations of Sappho’s poetry.
My intention behind the video was to create a Greek and English version of a poem based on fragmentation by using excerpts of the lyrical language of Sappho. The Greek section of the video has been ordered to mimic the English section, which follows it, whereas the English section has been altered in order to link one fragment to the next, creating the resemblance of a singular poem. Yet, like the Greek section, the majority of original pronouns exist throughout the poem, pointing back to the original Greek text and its fragmented form.
Shannon Schmidt is an interdisciplinary artist and writer currently based in Chicago. She recently exhibited her video work in collaboration with eight other artists for The Space Between exhibition at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA) and Push the Envelope exhibition at Dynamo Project Space in Thessaloniki, Greece. Shannon received her MFA and MFAW (2009) from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.