ArtHistoryLink.co.uk
Talking Statues Speak Their Minds
Write a Monologue!
Monologos means “speaking alone” in Greek, but we all know that people who speak
without thinking about their listener can be very dull indeed. Your challenge is to find
a ‘voice’ for your statue and to write 400 words so engaging that passers by will stop
and stare.
Get under your statue’s skin!
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Look closely and develop a sense of empathy with your sculpture so that you understand and
share its feelings as if they were your own.
Invite your listener to feel with you: create shifts in tempo and emotion, use different tenses,
figures of speech and anecdotes, psychological transitions, sensory details and even sound
effects.
How to find your sculpture’s voice?
Write in the first person and adopt the persona of your character:
 What kind of vocabulary will you use - your own or that of another era?
 Your words will be spoken so read them aloud: use their rhythm and your sentence structure to
convey emotional charge and urgency.
 Read great monologues for inspiration, for example Hamlet’s Alas Poor Yorick, or watch film
monologues, like Morgan Freeman’s in The Shawshank Redemption.
How are you going to keep people listening? Structure your monologue!
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How will you introduce yourself? With a greeting, a warning, a question, an order, a riddle? Grab
and hold your listener’s attention from your very first line.
Think of your monologue as a story, with you as both narrator and lead: how will you build a
sense of development, suspense and atmosphere?
Your final line is the most important of all: how will you say goodbye and make your exit?
Leaping Hare on Crescent and Bell by Barry Flanagan, 1988, bronze, painted black, 365.8 x
182.9 x 274.3 cm., Broadgate Circle, Liverpool Street Station, London EC2
What do I look like? Where am I?
A massive but gravity-defying hare leaping outstretched over a crescent moon - in the middle of the city!
Do you feel out of place or are you happy here? You certainly seem to have plenty of energy. You are
surrounded by other sculptures, some very abstract: might you have a thing or two to say to or about
them? http://www.broadgate.co.uk/Art
My story!
What does the bell mean? Why are you jumping over a crescent moon? It’s quite mysterious. The hare is
a symbol of rebirth and resurrection: is that why your sculptor, Barry Flanagan, created so many
versions of you with different objects and for different places?
Who will stop and listen to your story? Office workers, tourists or travellers - do they tend to rush past
you to their desk or train? What will you tell them - where would you go and what would you show
them if your skinny body and long legs could run free?
Have you found your story and your voice? Then get writing!
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ArtHistoryLink.co.uk
Talking Statues
Leaping Hare on Crescent and Bell by Barry Flanagan, 1988
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