A BOOTH A BOOTH,
A SUESSULAR BOOTH,
WITH TAPS AND TYPES
AND WORDS THAT PROVE.
“PROVE WHAT?” YOU SAY.
“AND IN WHAT WAY.
WHAT DO THEY PROVE?
YOU SIMPLY MUST SAY.“
“WHEN EYES ARE WIDE,
AND WORDS CAN GROW,
THERE’S NO STOPPING
THE TYPES AND THINKS
THAT WILL FLOW.”
Imagine if you could see the world through a child’s eyes. For just one moment. A couple of minutes even, that could take you back to a time when the big things were small and the small things – well, they opened up a trap door to a whole world of possibility. Welcome to the Seuss Experiment.
As part of an exhibition curated by Cultshare – a social network for people to inspire and be inspired – we were asked to delve deep into a swathe of their inspirational posts and pick just one. From here we had to grow it and create something entirely new.
We chose this little film of Dr Seuss’ Oh! The Places You’ll Go. A perfect starting point to get our brains bubbling and boiling with all manner of wonderful and wild ideas.
So, we read up on Seussisms, got giddy with word play and set our glee free learning all about the great Dr Seuss himself.
And so, the Seuss Experiment was created.
With some ply board, several litres of paint and some steely determination we set about building our very own Seuss booth. A place to get words tumbling from the wide-eyed children inside us all.
How did it work?
Stepping behind the mustard curtain, a whole host of absurdities were waiting to welcome exhibition wanderers. Perching upon a children’s rocking horse, drawing themselves closer to a miniature desk complete with typewriter (and of course, a bottle of gin – the very beverage that lead to the Seuss pseudonym) we put them to work.
The task: to Seussify a snippet from a news story.
Surrounded by Seussisms splashed on the wall, we laid the seed, set the tone and asked them to retype a sentence they’d plucked from an envelope strung to the inner wall. Once they’d tugged and toyed, tapped and tinkered, we asked them to string up their very own stab at a Seuss-style sentence on the outside of the booth.
And it worked. By the end of the exhibition our Seuss Experimenters had rewritten the whole piece, bursting with rhyme, colour and endless imagination.
All-in-all a successful experiment, we’re sure the Dr would have approved of.
The exhibition has now moved to Espressini on Killigrew Street, Falmouth, where the final Seussified story can be seen in all its glory. Stop by, grab a coffee and have a read. It’ll be there until September.