THE ENGRAMS PROJECT

This is a video that interweaves poetry in two forms--English and American Sign Language for the Deaf--with painting and video. Here’s how it happened.
Edmonton artist Darci Mallon showed her installation work Engrams at the Edmonton Art Gallery in December of 1995. The word engrams refers to a neural pathway that signifies the existence of memory. The work is a triptych of huge, room-sized works done on sheets of transluscent mylar, backlit by banks of fluorescent lights. Each piece is based on an American Sign Language Sign that is connected to perception and memory: the sign for visual memory ; the sign for forget ; and the sign for memorize. What is remarkable about these works is not only their size, but also that fact that Mallon has created them entirely by imprinting her inked hand and fingerprints on superimposed, layered mylar sheets. One becomes aware that the fingerprint is one of the smallest and most definitive signifiers of identity.
I was powerfully moved by Darci's installation and I wrote a cycle of poems based on the work. I read the poems in front of Darci's Engrams installation at the EAG, with a simultaneous American Sign Language interpretation by Kathleen Bourrett. The success of this performance inspired me to make a video. With funding from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, I was extremely fortunate to work with Deaf educator and cultural activist, Linda Cundy. Linda translated my poems from English into ASL and performs them on the video-- truly poetry in motion.
Early in the project, Linda and I decided we would not use finger spellings, that this would be an artistic interpretation. Like all translations, there was much negoiation about interpretation--a fascinating process. The project was fortunate to secure videographer Rick Gustavsen, whose hand-held videography captures the fluidity of Cundy's performance. The videopoem was edited in an Avid suite by David Cunningham.

  

The project credits the inspiration and work of the following:
Jannie Edwards, poet
Darci Mallon, artist
Linda Cundy, ASL translator and actor
Rick Gustavsen, videographer
David Cunningham, editor

Engrams runs for 19 minutes in three sections:
Visual Memory: 6 minutes
Dementia: 9 minutes
Memorize: 4 minutes

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