From the exhibition The Theatre of Things, 2002
From the exhibition The Theatre of Things, 2002
From the exhibition The Theatre of Things, 2002
An exhibition about words and things for children and everyone else. By Magnus Lönn.
The Theatre of Things investigates the relations between words and things. Things are reality; words are the signs that represent reality. Things play roles with letters. Throughout the ages, philosophers have addressed the gap between words and things/reality. Why for instance, does the word ”desk” not look like a real desk?
Magnus Lönn wants to draw attention to words, to form them, to mould them, and to encourage us all, child and adult alike, to let imagination and poetry run free – and by so doing, to conquer language. The exhibition presents clever twists of speech and torrents of letters that involve objects with the same name in the exhibition.
The Theatre of Things exhibition is based to a large degree upon books – artfully combined to form towers or pallets or cut into the shapes of letters and other designs. Here too, are found imaginary letters shaped from scrap metal. When does a book cease to be a book and begin to be something else?
Magnus Lönn works with Byteatern (The Village Theatre) in the Swedish county of Kalmar. Bildmuseet has previously shown Lönn’s alphabet exhibitions Buller om Huller (roughly translated, Helter-Skelter) and Palaver på Grenesiska (Palaver in Grenese).
School programmes
In connection with the exhibition, guided tours and a school programme for junior and lower secondary school children (aged 7-13) will be offered. The school programme includes word and scrap metal workshops where children are offered the chance to write with calligraphy pens and to create their own scrap metal alphabets.
