Submission: October 08, 2016
Registration: October 01, 2016
Language: English
Location: Concept
Prizes: Publication, exhibition
Type: Open
How many mothers had to place their daughters in an orphanage, in order to save them from starvation, and how many lost one of them, nevertheless, to hunger…? How many women had their husbands executed, and how many of them lived in the terrible poverty Martina Tsvetaeva lived in, towards the end of her life…?
Yes, this great Russian poet knew, first hand, the most abysmal depths of human suffering.
And she died, herself, in debated circumstances, either suicide or forced suicide.
What could be more tragic…?
But beyond the terror of these facts, remains the beautiful, fragile poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva.
All poetry is fragile, just as fragile as Joseph Brodsky’s “butterfly”, this other great Russian poet who admired Tsvetaeva’s work.
Let’s admire it too, after reading it.
What is given to us, in increasing doses, today, every day, through all kinds of “media channels…?”
Garbage. Gossip. Cheap drugs for a humanity under anesthesia.
Let’s protest.
Let’s turn our back on them, be it Kim Kardashian’s behind, or Madonna’s “stupendous” elimination of wrinkles on her hands.
Let’s instead concentrate, willfully, on THE WRINKLES OF REAL SUFFERING!
Of which, the true poets are great witnesses.
Marina Tsvetaeva lived. She suffered. She wrote.
Her words are needed.
WE NEED THE FEELINGS, THE THOUGHTS, THE WORDS OF THE POET.
And it is of no solace that a “minor planet” receives his or her name, as it was the case with Marina Tsvetaeva, years after she hanged herself.
Will justice ever arrive on earth…?
We cannot do much.
But we can conceive A HOUSE FOR MARINA TSVETAEVA, as our homage to her.
She died 75 years ago. Let’s oppose her death. By reading her poetry, by feeling it, by thinking about it.
Design A HOUSE FOR MARINA TSVETAEVA.
If poetry still means something in our world, obsessed as it is with technology, gossip and unending “communication”, let’s explore its potential relationship with architecture. How would a building be, that expresses the essence of a poem…? How could we conceive a building, starting with a poem…? And how would we translate the rich but sad biography of a major poet, into a building…?
The deadline is October 8th – the day of her birth. Please send us ANY work, ANY size, ANY format to info@icarch.us. Please register by October 1st. We will publish all the works received on our website and we will organize an exhibition with the best works.
