The journey as a performative residency
|
|
In September 2021, I travelled to an art residency in Spain.
I realised that the trip was not just a necessary displacement, but took on a meaning in itself.
In a fortnight I drove, meandering, from Dordrecht to Murcia. Along the way, I searched for running water. That search determined my route, riding along flowing waters, the sea, streams and rivers.
Facing the waters, I stood, motionless, watching the flow.
In Spain, I was artist-in-residence at the AADK/Spain, a centre for artistic research in Blanca (Murcia).
After two months, I left Blanca and drove to France. There I continued working and it felt like a seamless continuation of that working period in Spain. In France, I stayed in my own house.
I realised that a residency is more of a 'state of mind' than a specific geographical location. You can just take that mode with you.
I decided to make a journey, considering the movement in itself as a residency. The starting point was clear; the end would be nothing more than the conclusion of a process.
The journey is not the metaphor of a work, but it is a work in itself, as a composition in time and space. There is no clear geographical goal, there is only the intention to be on the road.
As part of this project, I take impromptu walks, car rides and travel by train.
The project is supported by the municipality of Dordrecht.
|
|
|
Click on a picture to enlarge
|
|
Photos taken on a train ride across the Alps.
Bernina (CH),
April 5 2023.
|
|
|
Click on the picture to enlarge
|
|
|
During a train journey across the Alps from St. Moritz to Zermatt, I wrote continuously for eight hours. Not to record the trip in a text, but to internalize my observations and reflections through writing.
The notes were not meant to ever be read back. After I wrote them, they lost their importance.
Anchor (2023)is related to the works:
Streams (2022)
Short-term memory (2019).
|
|
Click on the picture to watch the video.
|
|
|
Hermannshöhe is a one-take realtime video recording of a scenic place in the Teutoburg forest (D). In the background the artist remains audibly present.
4K-video with sound.
40:14 min.
(best in fullscreen)
The work Hermannshöhe (2023) is related to the works:
San Juan (2010)
Idle (2013)
|
|
|
Walking the river.
An audio portrait composed of sound recorded at a series of locations,
further and further downstream.
|
|
Stereo digital audio file
La Loue (2023),
was created in
Excideuil, France,
February 2023.
|
|
On 24 July 2018, while walking in the Perigord, I had phone conversations with friends about the places we were at the moment: The places where we are (or would like to be). During these talks, we sent each other pictures of our surroundings.
For me, this occasion connected the conversations to the specific places; they became inextricably linked.
I cannot walk past these places now without thinking of the person I was talking to there, and of the conversation we had.Today, I revisited three places.
|
|
|
Click on the pictures to enlarge.
The places we were (2023) was created in
Hautefort, France, on 19 February 2023
and is related to the works:
The places where we are (or would like to be) (2018)
Memory Allocation (2021)
|
|
Click the buttons to read the last newsletters:
|
|
|
|
|
