Katerina Jebb’s “Language Poetry Protest” show at the Librairie 7L, Paris

Amongst 33,000 unindexed books housed in the 7L Library in Paris, Katerina Jebb selected an anthology of poetry, Scanning the Century, serving as the catalyst for the video installation Language Poetry Protest now presented in the exhibition space. One hundred forty-eight verses reverberate across a triptych of screens. Deliberate themes of scientific angst, weariness of conflict, physicality, gender, and spirituality generate a soundscape both elegiac and hopeful. Jebb’s artwork thus exemplifies the aim of its nucleus, Forbes’ distillation of the turbulent 20th century.

The chosen lines are reanimated by the ethereal presence of Tilda Swinton, bathed in a pale blue glow of war footage superimposed onto an undulating sky. Reminiscent of the Voyager Golden Record, a collection of earthly sounds that was launched into space as an artifact of civilization, Language Poetry Protest evokes a cosmic dispatch transporting echoes of a past still relevant today.

Poetry, intrinsically immaterial, emanates in a sustained yet fragmented rhythm. An aura of transcendental stillness surfaces as the verses meld into a single ghostly transmission.

On view by appointment until May 24th.

Text by Carmen Lili Roca