Writing as a Resonance Chamber: Teresa Mignan

Teresa Mignan's two poems introduce into Fern of the Ruins a form of ruin that is neither architectural, material, nor even visual, but interior. Trained in public health and international studies, she approaches writing with the attentiveness of someone accustomed to reading vulnerability not through spectacular symptoms, but through the subtle signals that precede them. This disposition toward listening permeates a poetic voice of striking directness, in which the intimate never seeks to elevate itself into exemplary confession.

Gloom transforms psychological exhaustion into a landscape. The grey that opens the poem is not merely a meteorological metaphor; it becomes a condition of perception, flattening the world until duration itself and the possibility of hope become indistinguishable. Yet the poem resists the closure of despair. A handful of memories—the embrace of former lovers, the presence of friends, the lingering warmth of affection—introduce a fragile form of resistance, not as the promise of recovery, but as that which prevents collapse from becoming absolute. Memory functions here much like the fern at the heart of the exhibition: it does not erase the fracture, but discovers within it the precarious conditions for survival.

The second poem shifts this inquiry from the realm of suffering to that of social identity. The almost incantatory repetition of "I'm conflicted" structures a meditation that extends beyond individual experience to expose the contemporary mechanisms of normalization. Success, belonging, the pursuit of external validation—these are revealed as imperatives whose psychological cost gradually comes into focus. The poem unfolds through an accumulation of unanswered questions, as though its very syntax refused the reassurance of resolution. Once again, ruin appears not as an exceptional event, but as the slow erosion produced by social expectations that have become invisible precisely because they are so widely shared.

Unlike the visual works presented throughout the exhibition, Teresa Mignan gives no material form to this fragility; instead, she allows it to resonate through rhythm, repetition, and the silences of free verse. Her poems remind us that certain fractures remain imperceptible until they find a language capable of articulating them. Writing thus becomes less a remedy than an act of recognition: the possibility of naming what had previously existed only as a diffuse sensation. In this way, these poems extend the central reflection of Fern of the Ruins, proposing language itself as a form of persistence—fragile, yet irreducible—in the face of the many processes of erasure that shape contemporary existence.

L'encre comme sismographe intérieur : Luo Xiangzhong

Gloom

I look outside and just see grey

Oh how I hate feeling this way

Nothing can help me sway

The feeling of such disarray

Oh why should I endure such pain?

Is it even worth it to stay?

They tell me the feeling is just temporary

But how comes it feels like eternity?

Someone save me from such misery

Just put me to rest

I fear this is the best it gets

But wait

I have endured some bliss throughout my life

Past lovers and friends who have held me tight

The warmth of that love oh how much I crave

Fuck such memories do want me to stay

Perhaps for them I will keep living

However at this very moment you will not see me grinning

La matérialité comme aveu : Liang Kaixuan

Is it worth it?

I’m conflicted

I want to succeed and be the best

But what cause ?

Im conflicted

Why most I fit in a specific box to appease to general

Why are there few categories

I feel trapped

I’m conflicted

Why some man catastrophic energy based on societal pressures

You must act like this to get that

You must dress like that to this

Is the amount of stress worth it?

I’m conflicted

Do I want to kill myself for the validaton of others?

Getting praise from the outside does feel good temporarily

However, at what cause?

Will I feel content going this route?

I’m conflicted