Karstic-Action VOTE 2020

Domopoetics is the name Joris & Peyrafitte give to 34 years of daily practices in transforming & intertwining their lives & works, be it through writing, painting, video, physical conditioning, cooking & all other shared household activities.

Karstic refers to the geological phenomena of dissolution & transformation at work in forming superficial or underground limestone topographies. Here it is taken literally & figuratively as nature, cave or personal explorations are an important part of their process.

Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte live in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, N.Y. and collaborate on many pluridisciplinary actions, books & films. Their Domopoetics-Karstic Actions present performances, conferences & installations that link their works; a first installment was presented at Galerie Simoncini, Luxembourg, in 2017. Their collaborations started shortly after they met in 1990 with NP designing covers & illustrations for many books by PJ — over 22 by now. Further collaborative work includes the teaching of seminars on domopoetics (Naropa University, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art, Limoges), & translations of their own writings as well as of poetry from Occitan into English (Bernat Manciet, Marcella Delpastre) & from English into French (Allen Ginsberg & Anne Waldman, the latter with Eline Marx). NP has authored several videos, among these 2 (“Anhalter Bahnhof” & “You Lie”) based on poems by Paul Celan translated by PJ, 6 “Flash-Interviews” ( 3” videos) with PJ as well as creating the media support for PJ’s Paul Celan presentations (Harvard, Bard College, Princeton, Rice, Yale & others, plus the films for the presentations/readings of the 2 Collected Celan volumes (2014, 2020) at NYU. In 2017 the pair collaborated on the poetry collection The Book of U/ Le livre des cormorans (Editions Simoncini) & in 2020 they created the video- event “Robert Kelly, A Celebration for his 85th birthday” for the Saint Marks Poetry Project. During the recent Covid-confinement (from March 24 to April 24, 2020) they broadcast Voilà Lunchtime! on Instagram & Facebook; this daily show shared their lunch preparations as a process-showing of their domopoetic practices. Their most recent KARSTIC ACTIONS/WORKS occupied the three levels of La Galerie Simoncini in Luxembourg from June 4 – July 15, 2021.