Cross Comix asked two narrators of visual stories, Hilal Uzuner and Zach Danson, to each depict a poem by the Rotterdam poet Maxime Garcia Diaz, from her new collection “Het Netwerk Moet Gebouwd Worden” (The Network Must Be Built).
In the exhibition you can see the result of the image translations next to the poems (in Dutch and English). They show how to visualize a literary style in different ways.
In the conversation, Hilal and Zach talk about their way of working. Maxime contributes via a connection from the US. An actor gives their own interpretation to the poems.
Diede van Ommen about the concept: “Comic artists are masters of visual storytelling. We organize, reframe, highlight. We have the power to add to text colour, movement, a body, a face. We select and plant seeds, we change perspectives. We use the materials we have, the context we see. We are influenced by the world around us, our colours available, our preferred tools. We make creative choices, each choice contributing to the meaning of our story told. The aim of this project is to highlight the influence of these choices, by telling the same story twice.”
Artists
Maxime Garcia Diaz writes poetry and prose in Dutch and English. She studied at the University of Amsterdam and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In 2019, she won the Dutch National Poetry Slam Championship and was selected for the deBuren Paris residency. In 2020, her chapbook Artificielle was published by the label Marktcorruptie. Her debut collection Het is warm in de hivemind was published by De Bezige Bij in 2021 and was awarded the 2022 C. Buddingh’ Prize for Best Poetry Debut.
In her work, Hilal Uzuner (1999) explores the multifaceted nature of life between different cultures. Drawing on her Dutch-Turkish background, she works with heritage, religion, and identity, often through rituals and memories from which stories emerge or which she has inherited.
Zach Danson is a Dutch illustrator living in Barcelona. He creates zines, embroidery, small sculptures and comics. He primarily depicts hedonistic scenes, characterized by a lot of crosshatchwork and great detail. Zach works mainly with a classic black ballpoint pen and mechanical pencil. For Cross Comix, Zach is collaborating with artist Hilal Uzuner to visualize two poems by Maxime Garcia Diaz. He is seizing this opportunity to work with a number of new materials.
Concept
Diede van Ommen makes personal comics, usually inspired by mental stress. She feels the need to draw – drawings depict her thought process which often includes some kind of shameful self-reflection that is meme-like and relatable.
