Exhibit Corpse began in 2009 in South Philly, PA. I wanted to create a forum for the city to express itself, and in so doing, build an even stronger sense of community and togetherness.
So, how does it work? Exhibit Corpse is modeled on the 1950’s Surrealist experiment of “Exquisite Corpse” in which artists and writers build upon the work of their colleagues. We gathered 10 – 11 line poems by asking 10 – 11 people to write successive lines of poetry. The only limitation was that our participants were to respond to the line that came before. So, Person B writes a response to Person A’s line. Person C writes a response to Person B’s line, and so forth, until the 10 or 11 lines have been reached. Person A responds to the same prompt we provided every first line-writer: a variation on the first line of the Frost poem, “The Most of It.”
Then, once all the lines were gathered, we posted the poems on various streets, one line per lamp post/street sign/mailbox…
We also captured the whole thing on film so as to be able to share the film with people in other cities because the idea here is to encourage EVERYONE in EVERY city to start their own Exhibit Corpse! To initiate such forums throughout the country so that we paper our streets with the tangible marks of citizens’ voices, interests, passions, poetics.
Please peruse our site, view our videos, ask for a copy of our DVD, let us know what you think! Begin your own Corpse exercise! Tell your friends! Add a line to a poem here. Innovate! Above all, exhibit your voice and help others to do the same!
