Dora Marke (neé King) is a writer, teacher, and poet who mines her experiences of migration, various religious traditions, and artistic heritage to render words into material for the senses.

Words move from the page to the wall as visual line and object, and to soundscapes of song and incantation. By bringing poetry to the gallery space, she bridges the deeply introspective practices of writing with public display, performance and the communal rituals of chromatic looking.

Marke aims to create art installations with  montages of old photographs and archival documents - from genealogical records to newsprint – juxtaposing them with objects that call to mind experiences of violence and resistance to slavery, colonialism and domination. Her practice is rooted in the African traditions of ancestral remembrance, where it is important to maintain connection with the dead, by asking the viewer to assume postures of stillness and contemplation and making visible the personal relics of historical memory, from shells to scarves and other heirlooms.

Central to her work are the silent histories of familial and African diasporic grief. Her current poetry project “In/Vocation” is a meditation on the arts of mourning, and what we learn from our grandmothers or lose with their absence. It features a central character who died while Marke was away at college and absent from her family’s rituals of mourning. Originally presented as a poem printed on vinyl, the update work will include a one channel video, photographs and a wall poem in cut-out vinyl.