Workshop Information
The Two-Headed Bird: A Surrealist Writing Workshop seeks to unearth the creative potential of the unconscious for the purpose of composition and publication. The course consists of a series of lectures, discussions and practical exercises on surrealist automatism, dream work, psychoanalysis and mythology. Students will examine existing surrealist works like William Blake's nightmarish visions, blues folklore, Yoko Ono's instructional pieces, Alejandro Jodorowsky's cinematic lucid dreams and the spiritual revolt of Butoh: a surrealist way to move.
Dream control, automatic writing and cut-up are tools of illumination. By extracting narratives from the unconscious mind, students will not only be able to maintain a continuous state of inspiration but also evade psychological traps that inhibit creativity like writer's block, self-criticism and creative boundaries established by traditional forms of composition.
The Two-Headed Bird prescribes set readings by C.G Jung, Katsue Kitasono, Sun Ra, Yoko Ono, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Leonora Carrington, Federico García Lorca and more. Students will be expected to keep a dream journal for the duration of the course, and workshop a piece of writing to be published on Free Association's website on completion of the course.
Key learning outcomes: Understanding of approaches and methodologies of surrealist writing, enhanced skills in research and analysis, editorial assistance with grammar and punctuation, best practice in cultural safety and sensitivities when engaging and critiquing culturally diverse artworks.
About Manisha Anjali
Manisha Anjali is a writer, performer and dream archivist. She is the author of Sugar Kane Woman, a collection of poems about the dreams and hallucinations of exiled Indo-Fijian women. Manisha is the creator of Neptune, an otherworldly audio archive of dreams and visions of artists and writers. Manisha is the Poetry Editor at The Lifted Brow. She is currently working on her forthcoming collection, Lizard. Manisha has performed at Melbourne Writers Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival, Emerging Writers Festival, Bendigo Writers Festival and West Writers Forum. Her work appears in Peril Magazine, Seizure, Blackmail Press, IKA Journal and Blackmail Press. She has been a Writer in Residence at Incendium Radical Library, a Hot Desk Fellow at The Wheeler Centre and an Emerging Cultural Leader at Footscray Community Arts Centre. About Free Association
Free Association is a project platform for writing workshops and publishing through the expanded fields of fiction, poetry, critical theory, philosophy and art criticism. Presented by artists, writers and editors, workshops are delivered over three evening classes at art spaces, engaging with the exhibitions on display. Each workshop series covers theory and practice, through group discussion, close reading, writing exercises, excursions, digressions, field work and practical workshopping. Students are assigned homework after each workshop to develop final works for publication. Free Association is open to anyone; no prior writing experience is necessary.
Please email freeassociationworkshops@gmail.com with any questions.
Application deadline: Midnight, Friday June 21
