Spanish
Confounding the Senses: Reading Lyric and Photographic Texts by Alejandra Pizarnik and Francesca Woodman
Marian Williams ('11); Mentor: Susana Chávez-Silverman
Abstract: Alejandra Pizarnik’s poem “La verdad
de esta vieja pared” and Francesca Woodman’s
photograph “From Space2 series” are works that
depict the physical interplay between a wall and
the body. These works present and complicate
similar concepts of spatiality and time, ‘truth’ and
embodied knowledge. How the reader/viewer
perceives and understands these concepts differs
according to the medium of the work of art.
However, these works—especially when
considered in relation to each other—blur the
distinction between visual and written expression
and how we understand the above concepts,
aesthetically. In this pair of works, spatiality, time
and the body are defined by movement; texts by
Jane Gallop, Susan Stewart and Merleau-Ponty
illuminate how movement functions in these two
media. Additionally, my study adapts theory in
aesthetics, photography, poetry and feminisms in
order to analyze how space, time and embodied
knowledge exist in (and are understood from)
Pizarnik and Woodman’s works.
Funding provided by Pomona College SURP