Category: Enquiry

‘An Enquiry on Desire and the City’ by La Sirena

Post author By Taya King
Post date 2nd May 2023
2 Comments on ‘An Enquiry on Desire and the City’ by La Sirena

Game and collages by La Sirena featuring in the seventh issue of Surrealerpool’s magazine, ’Patastrophe! (1 May 2023).

https://surrealerpool.home.blog/patastrophe-no-7/

https://surrealerpoolhome.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/patastrophe-7-spreads.pdf

‘Proposals for Surrealist Urban Planning’

The ‘Proposals for Surrealist Urban Planning’ game by Doug Campbell involves each player (minimum of two) taking a picture of a local landmark that they think has surrealist potential, and the others situating it in a more fitting environment.

Rules of the game:

Each player selects a building or landmark from their own local environment. This should be a building or structure that seems to them to have surrealist possibilities, perhaps seeming to be haunted or suggesting a role more dramatic than originally intended. For example, this could be a place that the player notices every time they pass, one that provokes irrational feelings, or that they find themselves dreaming about.

Each player then passes a photo or found image of it onto another member of the group.

Each player then takes the image that they have received from another member and situates the structure in a new landscape or context that they feel brings out its true surrealist nature. The structure can be resized or given a new function in any way that seems appropriate. This is most easily done by photo collage, but any available method may be used.

Catherine Sinclair Monument, Edinburgh, Scotland, photograph by Doug Campbell

‘Your Dearest Wish Will Come True’, hand-cut collage with mixed media by Taya King

‘Never Never Land’, Southend-on-Sea, England, photograph by Taya King

‘Quite a Harvest’, hand-cut collage with digital enhancement by Daina Kopp

‘The Helping Hand’, Chicago, Illinois, photograph by Daina Kopp

‘As Above, So Below’, hand-cut collage by Darren Thomas

Prittlewell Square, Southend-on-Sea, England, photograph by Darren Thomas

‘Castle at the Gates of Time’, photomontage by Doug Campbell

Enquiry La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

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A post shared by Stephen Kirin (@kirinstephen)

This beautiful mermaid mosaic was created by our talented friends, The Kirins, who have kindly allowed us to share this image on our blog in celebration of International Mermaid Day 2023. Of her appearance on the blog, Stephen tell us that:

‘the Mermaid would be delighted and we both agree that meeting up with others in the blog would be very stimulating’.
– Stephen Kirin

The Kirins are a collaborative art duo made up of Lorna and Stephen Kirin, who are based in the picturesque county of Suffolk, England. Their artworks take many forms, including sketches, prints, handbags and fabric, and can be purchased online from their Etsy shop.

Enquiry La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

Fantomas meets the Sirens!

‘The Fantastic Aquarium’ (Mexico, 1974) Art by Gonzalo Mayo.

Enquiry La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

Our dear friend, John Richardson, kindly shared with us these three wonderful collages of sirens.

Hand cut collage ‘Marine Forms I’ by John Richardson

Hand cut collage ‘Marine Forms II’ by John Richardson

Hand cut collage ‘Marine Forms III’ by John Richardson

Enquiry La Sirena Tattoo

Images of La Sirena

My beautiful, creative and talented friend, Patch (do check out her artwork here), recently shared a photograph of her mermaid tattoo on her thigh (pictured above) with me. What I found particularly striking about this image, was the uncanny resemblance it bore to Youki Desnos’ mermaid tattoo (pictured below), which is similarly positioned on her thigh.

Youki Desnos showing her mermaid tattoo (Robert Doisneau, Paris c.1950)

This chance encounter between the two mermaid tattoos really resonated with Patch, prompting her response to the image: ‘I love that shot, [Youki’s] confidence and the fact [the men] look impressed rather than letchy’. Indeed, both women can be seen controlling the gaze in their respective photographs and embracing their femininity through the siren figure.

Enquiry La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

Our good friend, Tracy Thursfield, kindly shared with us her wonderful painting of a siren, based on the Star card from the Tarot.

Enquiry Exhibition La Sirena Tattoo

Images of La Sirena

I recently acquired the tattoo shown above right. It wasn’t until I showed it to the group that it was pointed out that it qualified as an image of La Sirena, both as a hybrid being capable of traversing earth and air, and because the sirens of the Homer’s Odyssey were female figures with wings.

The tattoo, by John at Bizarre Ink of Edinburgh, is based on the ‘Queen of the Night’ also known as the ‘Burney Relief’, shown at the top left. I had been fascinated by this figure for years, and finally got to experience her presence at the ‘Feminine Power’ exhibition at the British museum a few weeks ago. I was coming to a significant hinge-point in my life, a tattoo seemed an appropriate ritual marker, and I suddenly realised what it had to be.

The story of the Burney Relief is a mystery worthy of the pulps. Acquired from a dealer in the late nineteenth century, its exact origin is unknown and it was long thought to be a forgery. It has since been widely associated with Lilith, though current scholarship suggests it is a representation of the Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love OR Ishtar’s elder sister and arch-rival Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld. (The sisters were much later syncretised by the Greeks as Aphrodite and Hekate respectively.) This duality pleases me, and I suppose the tattoo represents whichever queen of the night I find myself in most need of at any given time.

Enquiry Exhibition La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

‘Mami Wata’ Nigeria C19. From ‘Feminine Power: From the Divine to the Demonic’ at the British Museum.

Enquiry La Sirena Poem

Images of La Sirena

Many thanks to our good friend, Dominic Tetrault, who recently came across these wonderful sirens, drawn by Robert Desnos – and has kindly shared them with us, at La Sirena.

‘Sirena (mermaid) teaching singing to a bird’ (Robert Desnos)

Source for both images: Jacques Doucet literary library – https://bljd.sorbonne.fr/search?preset=19&view=medias&fbclid=IwAR2tfzUJ6p1tLXNhT2ECPf308qPdqDMTZCmCuDd7-9aqV9lShwkxm7sxCtg

The siren is an important figure in Desnos’s work and life. Here is one of several poems featuring sirens.

His partner and second great love, the artist, Youki (Lucie Badoud) was also associated with the siren, which she had tattooed on her thigh.

Poem – ‘Mermaid’ (1930), taken from ‘The Voice of Robert Desnos: Selected Poems’, Translated by William Kulik, The Sheep Meadow Press (Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York, 2004).

Enquiry La Sirena

Images of La Sirena

Our dear friend, Christine Haller, recently tracked down this rather marvellous siren by Myrlade Constant, in Venice, at the Biennale.