Daphne Simons
POISON PAWN
Pablo’s Lament
By: Rabindranath A. Bhose
With every passing day,
I find myself more bitter.
And needless now to say
The customers get shitter.
Tiny charts her reckless course,
Boa whispers in her ear,
Of bad advice - an endless source,
The rest of us are left to fear
Our path through the water
Our journey at sea.
The Captain Log’s author
Less canny than me.
When Joeyina comes in
And envelops us all
With thunderclaps, lightning
And dramatic rainfall
Maybe then we can all
Get a decent night’s sleep
As the customers bawl
And the open decks weep.
When the skies open up
I can lick my bar clean
Oh so empty my cup
But at least it will gleam
There is nothing for me
On this God awful ship
To Joeyina I plea:
With your force make it flip.
Into sunnier times
Where we swim wild and free
The clock’s hourly chimes
Muffled flat by the sea.
A familiar hum
And intertwined necks
To my ears it will come
‘Til they no longer flex
Until then I must toil
As Hobby drones on
And my blood will still boil
Until curtains are drawn.
STORYBOARDS AND MOTIFS
HOBBY HORSE Music by Yanik Soland
UNABLE TASMAN Music by Yanik Soland
PABLO THE DEPRESSED ALPACA Music by Yanik Soland
JOEYINA TEMPESTINA Music by Yanik Soland
ALBINO BOA Music by Yanik Soland
Daphne Simons is an artist currently based in Papaioea, Aotearoa NZ.
For POISON PAWN, Daphne is working with Yanik Soland (music), Rabindranath A. Bhose (text), Josie Perry (script) and more.
Due to COVID restrictions, the majority of this project will take place online from 6th October – 20th November, 2021.
CLOSING EVENT – Saturday 6th November 2021 * Depending on Tāmaki Makaurau Covid restrictions – UPDATES TO FOLLOW.
POISON PAWN is a process-based collaborative film-making project. To begin with, a set of stock characters are introduced, each with their own storyboard and musical motif developed by Yanik Soland. These will be accompanied by a naval-themed soliloquy, Pablo’s Lament, written by Rabindranath A. Bhose. The characters and soliloquy prompt a script that is being developed with Josie Perry. This project is a live-edit made public, updates will be posted on the RM website and socials in the lead up to the closing event/ film screening.
POISON PAWN expands on Daphne’s interests in de-forming cinematic conventions through collaborative methods, camp caricature and a ridiculous form of parapraxis. This project began as an attempt to mis-construct an alternate ending to the biography of former US chess champion Bobby Fischer, but the plot grew stale and was hijacked by side-characters with more personality. Bobby is long gone and the ship has been taken over by another motley crew (not that Mötley Crüe).
Stay tuned to see how Tiny Titanic, Pablo the depressed Alpaca, Hobby Horse, The Albino Boa and Unable Tasman grapple with Joeyina Tempestina, the fast approaching, and strangely enchanting, tropical hurricane.
Special thanks to;
Yanik Soland https://www.yaniksoland.ch/
Josie Perry https://josieperry.com/
Rabindranath A. Bhose https://rabhose.co.uk/
The Mondriaan Fonds
Bio: Daphne Simons (b. The Netherlands) is a visual artist currently based in Papaioea, Aotearoa NZ. Their work incorporates moving-image, sculpture, drawing, and collaborative production methods. These forms allow them to expand the potential of surRidiculism, a self-defined tendency. They have a Master of Fine Arts from The Piet Zwart Institute (NL). Recent exhibitions include ‘Material Context’, Het Archief (NL) and ‘YIKES’, Growing Space (NL). They have co-produced a series of comic books and installations with Josie Perry titled ‘PLASMA FREEZE’, and performed at TWENTY ONE, South-end-on-Sea (UK); Locatie Z, The Hague (NL), and LaVallée, Brussels (BE). They have undertaken artist residencies at Kunsthuis SYB, (NL), Wassaic Project (USA) and Enjoy Contemporary Art Space (NZ). They collaborate with Li-Ming Hu as the artist duo RIFF RAFF, which held projects at GLOVEBOX, Enjoy Contemporary Art Space and The Physics Room, and they co-organised the temporary project space CANAPÉ CANOPY with Mark O’Donnell.