Join us on Saturday 5 September as poet Christodoulos Makris will present a new work, ‘Capital’, at The People’s Pavilion.

‘Capital’ is a polyphonic poem composed of fragments of text from unattributed reviews of establishments on Talbot Street, publicly available on Google Maps. It has its roots in Makris’s longstanding interest in the shifts in language use, communication and identity brought about by digital media, and their implication on poetic discourse.

The poem maps the street through the kind of public-private writing prevalent online (the reviews often stray into personal anecdote). Its documentary and fragmentary nature also responds to the early post-Covid conditions, our toggling between ‘real’ and online geographies, and the ongoing uncertainty regarding the navigation of physical environments. The poem offers a representation of our transitive relationship with urban spaces during this period, with our perception of the city as partly digital and suspended in the recent past having been enhanced, something that is reflected in the reviews, themselves slightly out of date or skewed.

Talbot Street was chosen as the site of the poem because it is a street Makris walks regularly after getting into the city centre by train from his home in north county Dublin. Despite becoming a habitual route, the street remained essentially unknown to him, serving primarily as a conduit. It was only through navigating the street on Google Maps that Makris uncovered the wealth of energy, tumult and experience present in its establishments, the street revealing itself in the process as a microcosm of contemporary Dublin and particularly of its overlapping multicultural and transactive-capitalist aspects.

Booking

Due to current regulations on social distancing, places are limited to 10, so book early to avoid disappointment. If you would like to book your free place please email [email protected]

We look forward to seeing you at IMMA!