All Rainbows in a Brainstem is the second solo show of Nathlie Provosty as well as the presentation of her collaboration with the legendary American experimental poet Anne Waldman, in the form of a book published by NYC-based Hassla (hasslabooks.com): All Rainbows in a brainstem / that we be so contained. The exhibition name derives from Waldman’s poem. About the genesis of the project, they each wrote a short text:
Anne Waldman: “Something about finding pathways through chaos seemed relevant in making this work. I had started the poem on the way to protest the treatment of immigrants at the border in El Paso. I had had the dream image of a small life form tugging at sleeve to trigger the hand start writing, lift the pen, the brush. As if we might be condemned to a long sleep where we lost so many things of this world. Then with more writing and revision as daily life got weirder, stasis of sequester became a clear portal. What was allowed to enter felt like a call, moral struggle, a reckoning, a provocation, to break the silence. Nathlie Provosty’s amazing subtle fields of color in parallel collaboration were an inspiration for our inexplicable existence: vibrant, humming, affirming. I was responding within an antithesis reality we shared.”
