Ana Maria Caballero & Hieroglyphica

Since 2022, Ana María Caballero and hieroglyphica have collaborated on various text-based generative projects.

In the Spring of 2022, they launched I WISH FOR THE METAVERSE TO RINSE OFF OF ME, a collection that explores both the power and infirmity of affirmations. This sold-out series has been exhibited in Istanbul’s Zorlu Performing Arts Center, VellumLA, ArtSect Gallery in London and Despace in Berlin. A French version is currently on display at NFT Factory in Paris. In Fall of 2022, they presented POEMS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN (PITPD), which sold out in less than a day. A special edition of this project was live-coded during South Florida’s IGNITE public arts festival.

Their collaborative work ties into notions of permanence, play and poetics, exploring the nuanced meanings of words and the vast diversity of ways we might engage with them. What makes reading so powerful is that it attaches to our mental states. We don’t read as spouses, students, parents. We read as we are feeling today.

Reading and writing are generative acts. Writing takes inspiration from the world to generate meaning, casting it as language that can, in turn, generate countless interpretations. Meanwhile, reading generates agency for poetry. Via readership, we bring works of literature close to our breathing worlds; we also help ensure others will do the same.

Some might think that it is the texts of the poems in the public domain that are permanent while our interactions with them are ephemeral, but, as a collection, PITPD aims to show that it is through collective readership, made up of small, personal moments of connection, that verse lives on.