Palimpsest 1

Palimpsest - Re-Writing The City is a short course/collaboration facilitated by Simmone Howell and Lisa D'Onofrio via Signal Youth Arts.

Seven intrepid participants climbed the Signal stairs on August 6 at 5pm to find out about Palimpsest. This is Lisa and my third Signal project (following from 2012's Creative Journalling and 2013's Mapping Melbourne) - and we're thrilled to have returnees and new participants. As always our aim is to explore 'place' through text, illustration and collage, and find a collaborative way to present our material. I love the creative hum that happens when the group 'clicks'. For the first class, we introduced ourselves, did a version of an Exquisite Corpse and talked about words and layering, how stories are built, the human desire to put form to everything we encounter. We discussed the criteria of urban legends (that it happened to you or someone you know, that it's not SO unbelievable, the element of horror, the cautionary tale), and shared our own. We went for a brief wander down to the site of Harry Houdini's Queen's Bridge leap. When we returned to Signal we did some writing. Finally, we had a look at some pages of old copies of The Truth, The Trading Post and The Age - searching for stories within - and each participant took a page home to work on something until next we met.

Some links:
Houdini's dive into the Yarra

www.palimpsestcity.com - an interactive poetry website from UK

“Thus memory writes itself indelibly on the literal surfaces of the city.”

http://andthosewerethereasons.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/seeing-the-city-as-palimpsest-part-i/