I Think About Your Hands – Belgium-based Poet Marina Kazakova

As the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death is commemorated this year, a Belgium-based poet Marina Kazakova prepared a poetry programme inspired by and devoted to the great artist and his gorgeous country. The hands drawn by da Vinci in his portrait paintings as well as his famous study of arms and hands probably represent the most exquisite visualisation of hands in the history of art.

Marina will perform a selection of poems inspired by da Vinci’s works, Italy and Russia. The selected poems reflect the scope of human emotion, as well as relevant issues facing present-day world of Europe: hate crimes, migrants, discrimination, body commodification.

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Marina Kazakova (b. Gorky, Russia, 1983) is a Belgium-based writer, poet and audio-visual artist. Published internationally in magazines and journals (Three Rooms Press “Maintenant”, “AntiNarrative Journal”, “Crannog”, “Duck Lake Books”, “Writing in a Woman’s Voice”), Marina is a frequent performer, she has been shortlisted at different poetry/ film-poetry competitions and was awarded various prizes.

She is author of verse novel “Tishe…Piano”, the film adaptation of which was shortlisted for International Short Film Festival Leuven 2013, Miami Indie Wise Festival 2018, XpoNorth Festival 2018, and got ’The Best Narrative Short’ Award at the International Film Festival behalf Savva Morozov in Moscow in 2015.

Her literature works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the challenges posed both by memory and grief.

Marina holds a Master in Public Relations and in Transmedia. Currently, she is PR Officer at ‘Victim Support Europe’ (Brussels) and working on her practice-based PhD in Arts “Lyric Poem. A research on how the unique characteristics of lyric poetry can be expressed in audio-visual medium” at Luca School of Arts (KULeuven).