Fee

950 €

Workshop + housing + Meals

Payment of 300€ to confirm your inscription.
A 25€ extra fee is necessary for Association Membership.

For fees for accompanying contact us

ADDRESS

La Chancellerie
04700 Lurs-en-Provence

I believe that making marks is linked to our humanity. I like to imagine that making marks and getting our hands dirty is a way to ‘stay human’ and if these actions are shared, perhaps they are also a way to support our ability to form community, to feel in resonance, to make our empathy grow within us. We are all isolated and interdependent, I propose actions that support awareness of interdependence.

For years I have been teaching handwriting and its historical origins (the Latin forms prior to the advent of printing, commonly grouped under the name calligraphy, which is an extremely reductive term) and experimental, gestural, expressive mark-making. By guiding students to break the rules of legibility, I realized how deeply people’s minds are framed by the shapes and structures of text. Further studies on scientific discoveries relating to the importance of handwriting for the brain led me to investigate handwriting as a form of expression deeply connected to the entirety of the body and mind.

The course explores our relationship with Latin writing forms and Chinese ideograms. The Latin letter and the ideogram are the symbols of two great civilizations and also of two great empires. Sometimes these symbols have the strength of an icon. After a series of experiences aimed at the production of symbols written on large sheets of paper, we will move on to the exploration of the abstract mark, which I have given the definition of ‘mark of the unknown’: we will do this by listening to sounds, music and spoken words. We will then take the time to think about these points and share ideas and thoughts.

PROGRAM

Writing by hand and scribbling, two ways of making marks. We associate mastery, originality and clarity and with calligraphy and beautiful handwriting. A scribble on the other hand, be it drawing or writing, is generally linked to a hasty, clumsy, confused action.

In this course we will experience both calligraphy, that is, making marks according to precise rules, and scribbling, that is, making ‘marks of the unknown’.

We will experience the writing of Gothic capital letters (Latin script) and of Chinese ideograms: we will thus make precise actions, aimed at learning repeated gestures, punctual marks, accurate shapes. We will pay attention to posture, hand pressure, arm movement oriented towards the production of a given shape.

We will then move to the marks of the unknown. I will guide students to this process while listening to specific musics or sounds. Would be ideal to work standing or even walking. and to be outside, in the open air.

From the experiences of making calligraphy and marks of the unknown, students will produce sheets full of marks and writing which they will then assemble into books and paper sculptures.

Bibliography

Griboullage/Scarabocchio from Leonardo da Vinci to Cy Twombly
Exhibition catalogue, Beaux-Arts de Paris, 2022/2023

Monica dengo

lives and works in Italy.

She is an artist and teacher working with handwriting, lettering, calligraphy. She has taught in Japan, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, France, Canada, Russia and United States. Currently she teaches at ISIA Urbino and in a three years long course on historical calligraphy in Venice -Italy, for CIAC - Centro Internazionale Arti Calligrafiche.
After a formal training in calligraphy and bookbinding Monica stepped out of the historical framework to begin an investigation of the contemporary connection that people have with their own handwriting. Her studies were particularly influenced by her students: during intensive workshops in which she guides students to break all the rules of legibility she realized how deeply people’s minds are framed by the forms and structures of the text. Further studies of scientific discoveries in the importance of handwriting for the brain, has lead her to investigate writing by hand as a form of expression independent from the rules of legibility and deeply connected with the wholeness of body and mind.
Her artworks have been exhibited in many parts of the world Her work can be found at the San Francisco Public Library Special Collection, the Berlin’s Akademie der Kunste Calligraphy Collection and in private collections. In 2014 she was awarded best international artist at the Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial.

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