Old Writing Connection site
Somnus was a work commissioned by the Fremantle biennale 2019. It was a radical enquiry into the nature of sleep, immersing audiences in the experiences of four sleepers as they cycled through the fear and ecstasy of REM and non-REM states. By day the pillared warehouse of PS Art Space was a sleep sanctuary, which transformed at night into an otherworld of kinetic still lives, nocturnal languages, poetry, and haunting music-scapes where audiences roamed between stages of sleep.
Written by Jennifer Kornberger, directed by Horst Kornberger, with music composed by Eva Jurgec, costume design by Carolin Linge and set design by Tom Muller, somnus was a large-scale collaboration between some of Slovenia's best performers and an outstanding ensemble of Australian artists.
The Reherrsal was a 'social sculpture' based on the change-making ideas of Rudolf Steiner and artist Joseph Beuys. Directors Horst and Jennifer Kornberger formed a learning hub, building capacity in community and harnessing the potential of the group for making transformative theatre. We moved, spoke and improvise scenes and micro-myths for our time. As the title of the work suggests, audience members did not spectate, but joined us to rehearse the future we wish to inhabit.
Introduction to 22 Pillars by Jennifer Kornberger
I’ve always had a simple fascination with the way people can be moved by words, how they can be stirred or soothed or shown another way to feel. Poetry offers the most intense experience of words but does anybody read it? As a writer I know that poetry can be a fairly solitary pursuit – there’s the poet with the pen and there’s the reader with the book. But in its roots poetry is communal, it’s shared mythos, it’s the first songs of every culture. Words make us human, so it follows that strong, beautiful words can have an extraordinary effect on us.
Over the last few years I’ve been experimenting with ways to bring poetry into new contexts, to redraw its parameters and even bring back the social aspect, the collective experience. As a poet I get to meet quite a few poets. Unlike some hopeful prose writers poets know they will never pay the bills by writing poetry. This makes the air around them very free. You can breather better in their company. I had the idea of gathering up a group of them and creating an installation called the ‘Forest of Poets’. It was somewhere between a flash mob and a ritual for place. I found that people were hungry for meaningful words, it was very encouraging. Then I worked with a group of new writers to create an installation called ‘Oraculum’. In both these artworks I wanted the audience to move through the space and encounter the poets speaking to them. It’s quite intimate, there are no microphones, no distancing, each poet is entirely present for the audience member.
So 22 Pillars is the next in this series of experiments. I was asked by Tom Muller, the curator of High Tide, to respond to a particular site – Pakenham Street Art Space. It’s an orderly, evocative space, almost like a crypt. It has literally 22 Jarrah pillars, each one crying out to be inhabited by a poet. I decided to create 22 ‘local archetypes’ and have each poet write a piece to bring that archetype to life. The whole artwork would reveal and vivify Fremantle in a completely new way. What does the The Harbourmaster’s Daughter have to say, or The Green Lighthouse? If The Mouth of the River could speak what would it tell you, or The Shadow of the Roundhouse? In this installation The Fremantle Doctor poses a question, and The Ghost of a Woman finally speaks.
The poets have come through with some strong work. More than half of them actually live on the Aeolian dunes of greater Fremantle. 22 Pillars is a chance to meet them in action. Yes, there are some notable names in there, poets whose work regularly shows up in anthologies of best Australian poetry, prizewinning poets, but also poets whose work is emerging, so it’s a very egalitarian mix. To have the whole cohort focused on the Fremantle theme is really a first for the City.
22 Pillars goes further than the previous works because I decided to add a speech chorus. I call it The Limestone Chorus. There is something exhilarating in the sound of a word chorus. Again, it’s another aspect of the collective voice. Words behave like powers. 22 Pillars is a living artwork; it speaks, creates images and makes its own world.
There is nothing in the performance to distract from the words, the lighting is simple, the human voice is unadorned, what happens is between audience member and poets in a field, a highly crafted field of words.
The poets’ costumes, or orator’s garb, are designed with elegant simplicity by local designer Deborah McKendrick.
What can audience members expect? To be touched by unique performances and original material, to be opened to poetry in a totally new way, and to realise that poetry is indispensable to their lives.
Forest of PoetsA Forest of Poets at the 2015 Perth Poetry Festival. Photograph Coral Carter. Indigo EliIndigo EliLiana Joy ChristensenLiana Joy ChristensenChris ArnoldChris ArnoldZan RossZan RossNeil PattersonNeil PattersonTrisha Kotai EwersTrisha Kotai EwersAnnamaria WeldonAnnamaria WeldonSue WallworkSue WallworkCoral CarterCoral CarterAilsa GrieveAilsa GrieveSamya JabbourSamya JabbourJudy GriffithsJudy GriffithsJane CrothersJane CrothersGroupGroupJoanna SchapelJoanna SchapelKath BroderickKath BroderickRenee SchippRenee SchippJill WhitfieldJill Whitfield
TO HORST AND JENNIFER KORNBERGER
Jennifer Kornberger portfolio
Horst Kornberger portfolio
Theatre of the Sea
POETRY CLUBS WA
Perth Poetry Club (many useful links)
dotdotdash (literary and arts magazine, events, projects)
Fringe Gallery (poetry events in Willagee)
The Community (hip-hop and visual arts collective)
Voicebox (monthly poetry in Fremantle)
Art Centres
Denmark Arts
Regional Arts WA
Creative Partnerships Australia
Australia Council for the Arts
Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries
Chamber of Arts and Culture WA
WRITING CENTRES WA
Fellowship of Australian Writers, Swanbourne
Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre, Greenmount
Peter Cowan Writers' Centre Joondalup
OOTA Writers
International Centre for Landscape and Language
Society of Women Writers (WA)
WA Bush Poets & Yarn Spinners Association
Writing at the Centre (Fremantle Arts Centre)
WRITING CENTRES AUSTRALIA
ACT Writers' centre
Australian Weiters Centre
Northern Territory Writers' Centre
WHAT WE BELIEVE IN
We believe that great writing begins with a great imagination and create our courses accordingly. Our processes focus on developing your core capacity as a writer. We develop this capacity by taking you on writing adventures – profound journeys from which you return changed.
If you want to tap your potential consider joining the community of like-minded writers that our courses and projects attract.
WHO ARE WE?
Horst and Jennifer Kornberger – poets, writers and interdisciplinary artists. We combine a passion to create with a passion to educate through artistic processes. For more than two decades we have provided innovative programmes that train the imagination. Check the testimonials our students have written.
HORST KORNBERGER Horst Kornberger is an interdisciplinary artist, director, author and poet-philosopher. He is an innovative thinker who has directed groups and communities in the development and use of aesthetic imagination and documented his research in five books. A graduate of the London School of Speech and Drama, Horst has maintained an arts practice fusing visual, conceptual, environmental and performative elements in artworks such as Kompost - the heap between ecology and art (1999), The Honeyclock, (2000), Buddha in Honey (2005), Dark Light with Tom Mueller (Zweitgeist) (2014), The Delphi Project (2016), Silent Speaks - Roe 8 protest design with Jennifer Kornberger (2017) and Seaborne – a contemporary performance/ritual with artist Tom Muller (Zweitgeist) for the 2017 Fremantle Biennale and Somnus with Jennifer Kornberger for the 2019 Fremantle Biennale and The Rehearsal 2021,a social sculpture Project. More about Horst at www.horstkornberger.com
JENNIFER KORNBERGER is an artist, writer, director, and creator of performance events. Her award-winning poetry is published in national journals including the Newcastle Poetry Prize. She has written two collections of poetry; I could be rain (Sunline Press 2007) and The twilight observatory, with the support of the Australia Council and the WA Department of Culture and the Arts. Site-specific performance works include The Beemaster (2008), Scenes from an unseen world (2014), Oraculum – a ritual to renew time (2015), Forest of Poets (2016), Silence Speaks – a creative dissent project (2017), 22 Pillars (2017), a collaborative installation involving twenty-two poets in a re-imagination of place, the Australian/Slovenian co-production Somnus (2019) an immersive work commissioned by the Fremantle Biennale, and the social sculpture based artwork The Rehearsal (2021). She is currently co-director of The Writing Connection and Theatre of the Sea. More about Jennifer's work at www.jenniferkornberger.com
The beehive The bees draft nectar zones on a map as thin as the tissue of the sun. They gust out of the hive, coil up into the solitary drone of their flight paths and disappear into furrows of sky. I get close enough to the hive to see the blood red pollen sacs on the thighs of a bee, the striped purpose, the stumbling crawl after they land, as if weighed by the simple grief of clover. In the late afternoon the garden is on heat with a deep liqueur fume, bees make a reckless toss from...
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Scene from the Bee Master, written by Jennifer Kornberger in collaboration with West Australian composer Paul Lawrence and directed by Horst Kornberger
The Calling - a course for men - within the masculine destiny there are challenges and resolutions common to all men. In this course we use simple writing techniques to access the directive powers within these experiences. This course is for men who want to hear their calling and find ways with which to clarify their life journey.
The Bardo of the West is a first attempt toward the creation of a total biography by means of creative writing, a journey that leads from memory to imagination: participants recall their past and imagine their future including the journey of the soul after death. The aim was to create a contemporary, western Bardo through active imagination.
Buddha in Honey is part of the Icons of the Environmental Age project by Horst Kornberger
The Beemaster was a contemporary mystery drama/event conceived and written by Jennifer Kornberger and performed by students of the Integral Studies Course 2008. I directed the play and worked on a new approach to acting that enhanced the connectivity of the cast.
the Taliesin project
write - perform - engage
Live in Denmark, WA in conjunction with Denmark Arts
The Tale of Taliesin is an initiatory tale whose topics are highly relevant to the situation of the world today. The Welsh story of the bard/initiate Taliesin and his ward Elfin explores the stages of a truly creative response in times of societal and environmental crisis. Topics such as the birth of the poetic/creative capabilities and their inevitable confrontation with the abuse of political power, media manipulation and environmental devastation reveal their timeless dimension in this project.
Participants can expect an in depth journey to develop their capacities as writers and performers. The timeline for the project is as follows:
Stage 1 - five Saturday morning sessions of creative writing to produce new material followed by an editing process. 9 am to 12.30 pm Saturday 14th August to 11th September.
Stage 2 - five sessions of performance technique Saturdays 9 am to 12.30 pm from 25th September to 23rd October followed by
Stage 3 - a performance of the the tale and the new material spoken by the participants for Denmark Arts Brave New Works festival followed by
Stage 4 - one conversation-based workshop for the wider community on the topics of the tale aided by artistic contributions from participants
register now
The project offers a journey into the Tale of Taliesin, compelling for writers because it provides a pathway to access the poetic imagination. Taliesin means ‘radiant brow’ in Welsh and his story outlines the archetypal process of becoming a creative human being.
We have taken this story of lyrical empowerment and designed original and easy-to-do exercises. Our aim is to lead the writer into connection with the dynamics of sound in language and the power of the four elements as tools of knowing and speaking about the natural world as a participant in a living process rather than a spectator. We will learn how to overcome ‘mumbling spells’ and ‘re-member’ our body poetic. Other topics include:
Thinking like a poet
The authority of the Imagination
The song-line of the essentially human
Truth and untruth in a post-truth culture
The project is suitable for writers at any level of expertise. It is a great way to find your poetic voice or extend the possibilities of your expression through contact with an archetypal story. The performance sessions involve tuition in speech formation for clear and expressive delivery, gesture work and storytelling technique.
The cost per participant for the twelve-week process is $260. It is our hope that anyone who wishes to join the project will register even if the full fee presents a difficulty as bursaries are being sought to support low income recipients
What People Say
Jaya Penelope, poet, performer and creative writing teacher
...Breathtaking in its scope, The Writer's Passage is no mere creative writing course but a soulful journey through the enchanted forest of world literature with Horst Kornberger as a delightful and erudite guide. His knowledge of and enthusiasm for his subject is breathtaking and he should be declared a national treasure. I have no hesitation in recommending this course to anyone who has a love of literature and language and anyone who wants to grow such a love
John Stubley, PhD. English
I see this course as being of greater value than any creative writing or literature courses I have taken as part of my five years of university study. .... For anyone with any interest in writing, art or the human being, this course will help you realise the limitless potential we all have....
Dr Peter Stafford, artist, performer and lecturer
After years spent working in academia I had become too 'clever'. I was very good at articulating a critical position, but was bereft of inspired solutions. Like many, I had hit a Post-modern dead-end. ...The Writer's Passage not only revealed solutions but also showed how the evolution of human consciousness has a certain 'genius' at its core, which when understood suggests a way forward - for both one's creative work and the soul's spiritual journey...
Harriet Sawyer, artist
I have been astonished by what unexpected bouquets have been plucked from pens, what doves have burst forth and flown. For anyone who loves the written word and would like to write more, I have nothing but praise for this course. The Writer's Passage has been an enlivening, joyful, and healing experience.
Dr. Nandi Chinna, writer/performer
...we move beyond writing from our own narrow experience, and connect with the collective imagination of the writers and stories that inform our cultural and literary milieu...My writing has been enlivened and enriched by entering the world of language as taught in this course. The Writer's Passage has given me insight, courage, and the practical skills to engage in a lively and fulfilling writing life.
Desmonda Kearney, poet
For me The Writer's Passage was an amazing journey, both personally, and as a writer. It has given me a broad perspective on our collective heritage of myth, literature, and poetry, in an historical context....The writing exercises in The Writer's Passage have expanded me as a writer, and on a personal note, this course has very much influenced my direction both intellectually and poetically.
Anna Minska, poet, performer
My experience of The Writer’s Passage has been personally transformative and creatively liberating. Horst is deeply generous with his knowledge, passion and spirit, and the process he facilitates is nothing short of alchemic. My creative process has expanded into new territory and my writing has taken on new colour, shape and sound. Horst’s reverence for each participant’s unique creative spark and voicing is rare and precious, and has been profoundly healing for me to encounter. I am filled with gratitude for this experience. To anyone who wishes to nurture their imaginative, wordfull self — I cannot recommend this course highly enough!
Adrian Glamorgan, writer, creative writing teacher and community activist
As a professional writer, I especially appreciated my year as a student of The Writer's Passage.... If you are on the outer journey of learning to write well, and the inner journey of learning to live well, then this course will be a steady inspiration to you during the coming year.
Coral Carter, artist, publisher and poet
The Writer's Passage was a cultural, emotional, social and philosophical writing feast. ... The Writer's Passage has made me a braver, stronger and more courageous writer...My writing confidence has soared.
Richard Smart, songwriter
The Writer's Passage was a real journey into my self. It allowed me to be child, tree, warrior, poet, Buddha, lost, found and so much more. ..... It taught me to write from the picture in my minds eye, to trust the picture and to simply let it unfold...
Sean Burke, educator and writer
It was a thoroughly enjoyable course, and full of inspiration for my work as a class teacher. By the end of the year even I had noticed a real improvement in the way in which I approached my own writing...
Rhea Pfeifle, musician
... it's that stepping into another's experience is so vital for writing with conviction. This is the magic and joy of the course. I loved the journey through the depth of human experience through history. I feel greatly enriched at having found a voice, my authentic voice in writing.
Jill Whitfield, teacher and writer
...writing flowed easily and effortlessly from our pens. ... 'motifs' were selected which resonated within each one of us ' and thus flowed our pens! How fascinating, and somehow reassuring, to discover our living links with Gilgamesh and Odysseus, with Rumi and Dante, with Shakespeare and Goethe. In my everyday life, I am constantly reminded of things I learnt while doing The Writer's Passage. It is a thoroughly worthwhile course that will live in you long after you have completed it. I highly recommend it.
Irene Soi Khim Tan
The Writer's Passage is not about the mechanics of writing. Rather, it is about reaching into the depths of the soul to bring forth one's unique expressive ability. In my mind, there is no writing without this. The course is highly lively, interactive, passionate and absolutely enjoyable.
Eva Cronstedt, writer
The Writer's Passage is an inspiring course that takes you on a fabulous journey through literature from early Indian, Persian, Egyptian and Greek and on to modern times. As interesting as the content of the course are the playful writing exercises. I found it a stimulating year that has helped to enrich my own work immeasurably
Anne Williams, textile artist and educator
The Writer's Passage has been a grand tour of one of humanity's most precious and enduring qualities, our relationship to language...... It has been a fascinating journey, often surprising, sometimes challenging, always stimulating. I have felt encouraged and nourished by this course.
Maggie Brackenridge
...my sense of wonder and awe of nature is slowly returning and I have met again my poet's heart. This course has helped me own and inhabit my life in a deeper way. It has shown me who I am! It was like a resuscitation of the Soul.
Justin Beal, poet, anthropologist
...empathy is obtained with civilizations of the past, through their literatures, and one realizes that resonances of these ancient experiences reside within us today. The study of ancient and modern literatures highlights the shared experiences of humanity. I found the course both cathartic and therapeutic
Ann Harrison
I am indeed privileged and have had a provoking year, inspiring scholarism and an absolute thirst for so much more. How sad that many of the great masters are not part of our every day school curriculum. This knowledge would sow greater understanding and lead us on to better, fairer and wiser decision making. I have come to appreciate all has been done before in the world , there are bench marks, nothing is new just the story line…. All I can say is this year has been remarkable and I really look forward to continuing the journey next year
Sue McBurnie
From the beginning of the course I knew I had found something that would enable me to contact the childhood innocence that holds my creative force. You find yourself constantly surprised at what appears on the page. Stories and poems begin to write themselves
Sara Aziz, High School English teacher
As an English High School Teacher at the Perth Waldorf School I have found 'The Writer's Passage' to be an invaluable teaching resource. It was especially relevant in our Class 8 Poetry main lesson as the exercises are equally suitable for children
Morgan Yasbincek, poet and writer, creative writing teacher
Working the word excavates the very nature of contemporary consciousness. Based upon the Steiner model, the course takes a path through the major shifts in consciousness over the last cycle of civilisation. We are called to inhabit the mythic frameworks through which these shifts occurred over the last several thousand years.
Horst Kornberger is our guide in this experience. He is the guide through the underworld of our own unrevealed nature. He has carefully crafted exercises, which, along with his inspired understanding of this wonderous process, unlocks the blueprint of soul life, as it colours the tapestry of human experience.
This course is one of those timely treasures, which will awaken a fresh engagement, a recognition that the greater mysteries are still very much a part of us all.
Pen Brown, writer, poet and performer
I would like to say that in my estimation this course is unique, and absolutely the best thing I have ever done for myself in terms of my creativity.
Martina Chippindall, dietician and story teller
Working the Word, for me, has been a journey across time, a reconnection with the power and pleasure of language, a falling in love. …Something was uncovered in me. My writing was celebrated as it twisted and turned, faltered and expanded.
The Delphi Project 2016
The Delphi Project was an innovative artwork initiated by Horst and Jennifer Kornberger in 2016 .
The central aim of the project was to experience the working of collective imagination. We used a model we had developed for harnessing the collective imagination and applied it to questions of personal and world destiny. We pooled the participants’ questions and led them through metamorphosis in community.
Our aim was to hone our pictorial thinking and become adept at translating thought into image, and image into thought. In this process our questions revealed themselves as partial intuitions, which can be made whole through the imagination of others.
We worked with two premises: the imagination is a reality beyond subjective fancy, and the modern oracle is the community capable of constructive imagination. Our time calls for exact, pictorial thinking in all fields of life and writers have a pivotal role to play in birthing this new capacity. We invited writers and cultural creatives to explore and practice this reality.
Writing Artworks
from image to imagination / available on request
This course has two aims:
The first is to produce vibrant writing inspired by landmark artworks of the past and present.
The second is to fine-tune the empathetic capability of writers and cultural creatives through an in-depth encounter with the sublime in art.
We will explore painting, sculpture, architectural artworks as well as various forms of contemporary practice.
New and seasoned writers welcome.
No previous knowledge is necessary, but a willingness to follow the imagination into unexpected places.
TUTORS: Horst Kornberger & Jennifer Kornberger