SPACE BETWEEN WORDS – Art project at Floriopolis, the St . Andrews Arts and Culture Metropolis
PHOTOS BY ERIC MARCUS
Floriopolis is currently hosting “The Space Between Words.” It is an exhibit and a big community art project where a short story is turned into a living, breathing, moving work of art by tattooing all the words and punctuation from the story onto people.
Heather Parker, Creative Director of Floriopolis, explains “This art project started as a short story contest open to local writers. Sixteen authors entered the contest. A blind panel of three judges chose “The Boy and His Beach” by DA Robin as the winning story.”
“Our goal is to illustrate that everyone is connected and we are using art to do it.”
Floriopolis is selling each single word and punctuation mark from the story for $25. 1500+ words are available for purchase. Buyers can purchase individual words or string words together to make a phrase or sentence and can have their word(s) or punctuation tattooed on their body, or, more relevant to the art project, there are people ready to get the tattoos once the words are purchased.
Floriopolis is getting closer to turning the story into living, breathing, moving art. In fact, they have already sold the ‘last’ word in the story. The buyer is described by her friends as “always having to have the last word.” So when she decided to be part of “The Space Between Words” it only made sense that she asked to purchase the last word used in the story. That last word is ‘sighs’ as in ‘ocean’s sighs.’
This really big community art project is a tremendous undertaking. Heather Parker states “We couldn’t do this without the many fabulous volunteers, the FAB (Floriopolis Advisory Board), and all the people who hear about it and are inspired by the concept of using words and art to connect people, for real, live, in person, and permanent. We’re showing that we are all connected. We are all part of the same story. It is OUR story.”
While all ‘parts’ of the winning story are available for purchase, the story itself will not be made public until September. “We will not release the winning story until Floriopolis has sold a majority of the words,” says Heather. “When someone buys a word, it is theirs; they have their own connection to it. They can personalize the meaning and the symbolism, and combine single words from the story to arrange their own phrases – regardless of the context of how the words are used in the story. That is the beauty of words; they mean something but, depending on circumstance, speaker, and reader, their meaning is fluid. We rely on words for communication, to get the message out, yet words are filled with nuance.” Reading aloud and speaking your written words is entirely different than writing them.
Author DA Robin will be visiting Panama City on August 15, 2015 for Floriopolis’ Author Readings event. Meet and greet DA and other writers at 4 p.m. Readings will begin at 5 p.m. This event will be only the second time DA has read his own work aloud.
DA’s self-described mission is to write, shoot, and breathe – photography shooting, that is. He graduated from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University in 2014 and lives in Tallahassee.
Photos can be seen on their Facebook page, ‘Floriopolis,’ in “The Space Between Words” photo album. The exhibit is open at 1125 Beck Ave, Historic St. Andrews (Tuesday and Saturday 10am-8pm, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 12-6pm).
Floriopolis is in its second year as a community arts center and is getting stronger every day thanks to the people in the community who share their time and resources with them, donate, and participate in their projects.
For more information, contact Heather Parker at 850-249-9295 or visit Floriopolis on Facebook.