Poetic Justice

 

 

"Poetic Justice for Valentine's Victims" was a tongue-in-cheek performance, campaigning against the terrible poetry used in shop-bought valentine's cards.The performance was part of "We Love You", a live art festival curated by RAG, taking place over several days in the run up to St Valentine's Day.

In this performance Ingrid handed out hand-made Valentine's cards to members of the public. The cards were hand-written with individual haiku about love, composed by Ingrid.

The haiku used the traditional 17 syllable structure, with 3 stanzas of 5-7-5. They were based on Ingrid's personal experience of love, trying to bring some real emotion and truth into a jaded and commercialised medium. The definition of love is so intangible, by giving Valentine's cards to members of the public, Ingrid hoped to remind people that love can exist between strangers and cost nothing.

To show the ridiculous and contrived manner in which Valentine's day has become dictated by consumerism, Ingrid printed out pamphlets titled "The Meaning of Love", from searching for the meaning of love in an on-line dictionary. The results were hilarious, sad and obscure, and a copy can be seen at Kim's Bookshop, Worthing, during Valentine's week.

There were three St Valentine's, all martyred in the same century. One of these sent a letter to his beloved the day before he was killed, signed 'from your Valentine'. This is how Valentine's day began.