I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, 
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.

Oberon, Act 2 Scene 1, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

In March 2021 I was invited to share my works “Titania’s Dream” and “Ariel” in the Melbourne Shakespearean, the newsletter of the Melbourne Shakespeare Society. I was honoured to be asked, as the newsletter is provided to State and National Libraries and to Bell Shakespeare as well as university English departments and members.

I studied Shakespeare at University and have a deep connection with the plays, my favourite being A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Below is the published piece.

The works of Shakespeare make many references to magic and enchantment. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we are transported into the unseen woodland world of Titania and Oberon, where magic reigns and wilful fairies tease and deceive each other (and humans).  In The Tempest, the magic of Prospero, made substantial by the spirit Ariel weaves a violent storm causing a shipwreck which sets the play in motion.  The ability of magic to transform the world we see into the other surely captured the delight and imagination of audiences in Shakespeare’s time and the power of those stories have endured to this day.  

During the autumn months, late blooming flowers and falling leaves are rendolent of the deep theme of enchantment which Shakespeare often wove into his works.  One is drawn into the forest, or to the sea, into a dream like state and there is a sense of worlds which are close by, but invisible.  During lockdown in 2020, I, along with many people in Melbourne, turned to the outdoors to maintain a connection with the world outside my home.  This reconnection with nature inspired me to create a series of photographic works using flowers and holi powder (the vibrant coloured powder used in India during “holi festivals”), to convey the magic in nature.  The series, which consists of twelve images, also explores the power, mystique and individuality of women.  The images draw on a number of different references from literature and popular culture, but two draw from the works of Shakespeare: “Titania” and “Ariel”.  Although Ariel is sometimes thought of as a male character, my research revealed that Ariel was commonly played by women from the late 1600’s.  

In my image “Titania”, the love potion prepared by Oberon floats over Titania as she sleeps.  I chose speckled spurflower to evoke the night-time Fairyland of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and because when gathered together, the plumes of flowers remind me of an old-fashioned bridal bouquet, which connotes the wedding between Theseus and Hippolyta and the resolution of pairings of Hermia with Lysander, and Helena with Demetrius.  As soon as I saw the flowers, I visualised the pollen-like powder engulfing the subject. The depth of colour in the powder represents the strength of the potion, but even though Oberon’s potion from the “love in idleness” flower was meant to be brushed on the eyelids of the subject, I have seen renditions of the play utilise powder or glitter instead so that the subject is enchanted by a cloud of magic.  

In “Ariel”, I visualised a seascape, perhaps even under the sea.  A twisting funnel of powder represents the sublime power of the tempest, like a tornado or a powerful eddy in the water in which a ship could founder.  The flame coloured Icelandic poppies with their grotesque, otherworldly pods bend at unusual angles, at once evoking the power of the tempest, but also conveying Ariel herself in the act of conjuring the storm.  As Iceland itself is a remote island, it was also fitting to choose Icelandic poppies to connote the island on which Prospero and his daughter, along with the other protagonists in the Tempest, take refuge. 

Thanks so much to the Melbourne Shakespeare Society for this opportunity. To explore similar works, see my Fever series.

Kadri