Art Museum
What Moved the Judges
“…by focusing on the highlights of peace- the finest in art, found in safe public spaces like Museums, [Art Museum] offers a clarion call even though softly of what we stand to lose if we lose the endeavours towards peace.”
Reframing the museum as a sanctuary, I structure the art as a space where pain is not erased but reflected. The poem’s language and rhythm work together to slow the viewer down, to make a moment of inward quiet that might extend outward. In that way, peacemaking begins not with action, but with the simple act of seeing.
Elizabeth Jeane’s cinepoem reflects on the quiet internal peacemaking that occurs while walking through an art museum, exploring what happens in the liminal space between pieces. While simple, the judges note that it is “captivating”, introducing a visit to the museum as a holistic, multisensorial experience that connects culture with personal dynamics of the self, percepts, and affects, connecting the whole of humanity with the most intimate places of the self.
Elizabeth Jeane is an MFA candidate at Butler University. She’s been published in MSU Roadrunner Review and Right Hand Pointing. Her work is forthcoming in The Polk Street Review. She lives in Indianapolis, where she tutors students and is at work crafting her first poetry chapbook. You can follow her on instagram @elizabethjeanewrite