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| Francesca Albini |
Welcome to Sets, Series and Ensembles, an exhibition of art in public places. Accompanying each public art placement is a 'First Response' for you to read here on the website. As artists and writers we are constantly collecting ideas, objects, themes, and sentiments. We are often searching for the connections and narratives that help us understand both our lives and our art.
Francesca Albini's cabinet of curiosity is a feast for the eyes and imagination, full of hidden imagery and long forgotten memories. It sits beside the dark teak Lion and the Lamb in Farnham, who guards its secrets. We welcome a new writer to CollectConnect, Diya Sengupta, who is unlocking our cabinet of mysteries, read her poem below.
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| Francesca Albini |
Rebirth by Diya Sengupta
a response to Francesca Albini
Kneeling, I craft
Altars of belongings
Dice and scattered joys,
Cracked banks, Pandoric secrets
A line of sandy beaches
A twinkle of the stars.
Clearing, I breathe
The incense, salt air,
Ribbons of girls and scars
Confessions and youthful guilt
Stifled; buried relics of
Ages passed.
Boxes turned tabernacles;
The pinecones, the driftwood,
The myrrh.
I exhale the final Breaths of
Adolescence
She is stuck, she cannot convert.
Lifetime of nostalgia and glee,
Rose-tinted perfection
Horror-felt, a beg for mercy.
A life beyond resurrected ends
A tale of bewonder laid to rest
In purgatory, in death
As young turns to old
I start to hold dripping water
As taps stutter in
Grime and mould
The beast of Time
Turns angels, they fall
Enthralled, it burns
A tomb of past
A carcass of “was”
I scream in silence
Glass turned violent
I see my child
Tied inside
She reaches to me
She breathes softly
She’s ready to leave.
To beam, to squall, to revolt.
No longer a cadaver,
No longer her mother,
No longer a force,
No longer her corpse.
A life once lived.
A promise to live once more
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| Francesca Albini |
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Francesca Albini divides her life between literary and artistic endeavours. She is a PhD in Classics, and has worked in publishing for her entire adult life, as a translator, author and editor. She is a self taught artist and photographer. Her work is inspired by folk art, but also by design. Albini is a collector of memories, and uses any medium that allows her to remember and share, express feelings and narrate stories. From line drawings to plastic cameras, from collage to upcycled jewellery and dolls. "My work is playful and dreamy, child-like but also philosophical. I fall in and out of love with many styles and tools, but I'm always me, whatever I do."
