My heart, my heart: live poetry jukebox

My Heart, My Heart: Live Poetry Jukebox is an interactive performance installation that presents a novel concept of engaging audiences with poetry through visual art and performance. It works like a music jukebox (only with poetry) and consists of a ‘library’ of jars, containing miniature artworks, each expressing a feeling or idea connected to a poem. Audiences are invited to look at the jars, choose one they feel particularly drawn to and listen to a live performance of the poem. They then receive a postcard with a picture of their chosen jar and information about the poem. The postcard also provides them with a password ‘to unlock’ the other jars on the project website. The jars are displayed on illuminated shelves. These are usually set up in our beautiful sky-and-cloud tent, but can also be adapted to small, intimate indoor spaces, such as lifts, beach huts, broom cupboards, or any other small spaces or hidden corners. The poems are about human experience, about the things we all live through - expressed in the writer’s words and the artist’s and performer’s interpretation of these words. They include poems from the late 19th century to the present day, with a stronger focus on the 20th and 21st century. Audiences engage with the installation one-to-one or in small groups of two to four - the whole experience takes about five minutes. The installation offers moments of beauty, calm, contemplation, respite, reflection and reassurance. My Heart, My Heart: Live Poetry Jukebox was created by Adie Mueller (Antje Diedrich) in collaboration with designer Trui Malten and received support from Upstart Theatre, Troop Artist Development at Cambridge Junction, Arts Council England, Apples&Snakes and The Place Theatre Bedford