“All Visible Tends to Illegible”

Calligraphy between Word and Image in Ana Hatherly’s A reinvenção da leitura

Abstract

In A reinvenção da leitura, Ana Hatherly utilizes calligraphy in the composition of visual texts, exploring the visuality and gestuality of writing through experimentation with the legibility of the text. However, by bringing word and image closer together, the author reveals that beyond the affinities between poetry and visual arts, there is a dual potentiality of writing, simultaneously verbal and visual, pointing to the constitutive heterogeneity of all media. Thus, in order to trace Ana Hatherly’s poetic and semiotic interplay, a discussion is presented that takes into account the encounters and paradigmatic dualities motivated by the visual texts and the accompanying essay, such as those between the calligram and Chinese writing, Baroque and Concrete Poetry. Thus, Ana Hatherly’s calligraphies are inscribed in between word and image, communication and secrecy.