Tina Festa’s Caviardage® Method is a creative and ‘poetic’ writing method that leads to the composition of short texts through a well-defined process, starting from pages of scrapbooks, newspapers, magazines, written in digital format; with a few tricks, almost any written text is, in fact, usable.
Conceived by Tina Festa, the Caviardage® Method refers to the Found Poetry movement, but, thanks to its potential, it is an original and versatile writing method that can be applied in various fields.
Its name derives from the French term ‘caviarder‘ or ‘to cover parts of text with a black patina’, often used by censors to eliminate unwelcome passages, and the word ‘caviar’ recalls the black colour with which the deletion took place.
The philosophy of the Caviardage® Method
The Method® is based on four fundamental pillars: Know, Love, Respect and Protect, which represent a sort of deontological code of ethics for the Caviardage® trainer in which we find the original substance of the concept of Care, i.e. a posture of attention towards others and the surrounding world and, first and foremost, towards oneself in order to bring wellbeing to the physical body and accompany the blossoming of the soul.
The main objectives of the Caviardage® Method can be summarised as follows:
- Returning poetry to its true origins starting from the Greek etymon of the word: poiesis, i.e. ‘to make’, ‘to create’;
- Re-appropriation of the “word”: by placing the word, “living matter” endowed with transformative energy and an instrument of relationship, at the centre, greater awareness of its value and the different ‘meanings’ it takes on for each individual;
- Taking time for oneself, self-listening, self-awareness, focusing on the here and now: writing with the Caviardage® Method offers time for self-care. It can become a meditative ‘ritual’, an introspective practice that takes place through the mirror of the page and gives value to the present moment. It is an invitation to ‘read’ one’s inner map and redraw it in poetic form;
- Having a new outlook on life: the Caviardage® Method suggests a slowing down of the pace, a change of gaze, usually untrained to grasp the magic hidden in our daily lives. Changing one’s point of view on the problems and difficulties of existence helps to bring about change;
- Development of creativity, discovery and valorisation of personal style for overcoming one’s limits: the Method® allows one to cross the limits imposed by an excess of rationality and gets one used to relying on one’s intuitive side, nurturing the “spark” of creative thinking. With practice it is possible to reduce what is experienced as an obstacle: lack of ability to write, lack of artistic skills, difficulty in identifying and expressing emotions;
- Valuing inclusion and sharing: Caviardage® facilitates everyone to express their thoughts freely and without fear of judgement. with the conviction that sharing ideas and projects is a source of enrichment, evolution and growth.
The techniques of the Caviardage® Method
To create a poetic piece of creative writing using the Caviardage® Method it is necessary to follow a specific procedure. The materials used for the basic technique, which does not involve the addition of graphic-pictorial decorative elements, are easy to find and use as: old scrapbooks, a pencil, and a red, fine-pointed felt-tip pen.
The creation process – guided by the Trainer or, having acquired the necessary practice, carried out autonomously – foresees a well-defined process, a sequence of steps that take place while working on the original text, beginning with the research – instinctive, emotional, non-cognitive – for the ‘calling words’ to arrive, step by step, at the composition of the new personal text.
Following a predetermined process, using only the words that the page makes available, should not appear as a limitation to creativity but rather as a small challenge to seek solutions by exploiting the available resources. In addition to the basic technique, the Caviardage® Method contemplates the use of various other official techniques, all of which are adapted to the specific process. These include the cut-up technique with the Caviardage® Method, the fragment technique, the double half-page technique and the fold technique, the gash technique; there are also techniques of more recent introduction and techniques still in the experimental phase.
In order to give greater evidence and value to the words chosen to realise one’s caviardage, it is possible to make use of “erasure”, i.e. the act of covering unused text using a black marker: this, for most, is considered the distinctive feature of the Method® but it is emphasised instead that erasure is entirely optional and constitutes only a way of “illuminating the words that call to us”, providing a clearer snapshot of the intimate feeling that emerges from the page. Various forms of artistic erasure are also possible.
Areas of application
The Caviardage® Method is very versatile and can be applied in numerous fields; those in which it has been most widely experimented are School Didactics and Helping Relationships (Art Therapy, Counselling, psychological and psychotherapeutic support…) but recently it has been extended to cultural operators.
In my work as a trainer, I have offered many Caviardage® workshops and Biblipoesis-therapy workshops in some libraries in which writing in the form of caviardage was experimented as a complementary activity.
In the field of Narrative Medicine I have brought the Method® into the training of health professionals or those working in the world of helping relationships, as a possible resource for overcoming impasses encountered in daily work, a chance to reduce stress and the risk of burn out, and a useful tool in Team Building activities for multidisciplinary teams.
As a personal exercise, next to the usual narrative mode, I have tried to use some Caviardage® techniques in the writing of the parallel chart – designed by Rita Charon. I believe that for the healthcare professional it can be a good practice for self-reflection and a new way to inhabit care stories with greater sensitivity and empathy.
For patients and caregirvers it is a way to face one’s own illness-related experience and share it in a new narrative form, poetic, transfigured by metaphor, which brings us closer to feelings, emotions, memories and desires in a more protected way, opening up to the possible re-signification of one’s own experience.
In conclusion, the Caviardage® Method should be considered first and foremost a practice of well-being and personal growth and a tool for ‘opening up’ that is offered to anyone who is willing to look within and beyond, with eyes always alert to wonder.
“A good preliminary practice to any other is the practice of wonder. Practice not knowing and wonder. […]. The practice of wonder is a practice that heals even the most wounded heart on earth’.
(C. L. Candiani Questo immenso non sapere, Einaudi, 2021)
Suggested reading (original text in Italian):
Festa T., Trovare la poesia nascosta. Educare alla bellezza con il Metodo Caviardage®, Editrice La Meridiana, 2019.
Cristina Maselli – Medical Surgeon Specialist in Ophthalmology, Secretary of SIMeN, Laboratory Facilitator of Narrative Medicine and Bibliotherapy, Certified Trainer of the Caviardage® Method