Noren - Space in Between
Video for the Noren (traditional Japanese space dividers) exhibition in November-December 2014 at Japanese Cultural Centre in Amsterdam
Claire Keane
RMH
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
will byers stan first human second
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Janaina Medeiros
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@alyahessy
Noren - Space in Between
Video for the Noren (traditional Japanese space dividers) exhibition in November-December 2014 at Japanese Cultural Centre in Amsterdam
Emptiness
April 2014 - present research, writing, performance, book
ongoing project
Cochineal Blood, Rubia Root
A research into colour Red brought me into studying the history of colour followed by diving into natural dyeing. A few surprising discoveries became a starting point. The veins of an autumn leaf are gradually closed off depriving the cells of food supply - that results in red spots in the leaf. The spots spread out more and more giving the leaf its magnificent red, but gradually bringing it to death. The red spots on the leaf made me think of pigmentation spots on human skin as we get older. A lobster turns red when cooked. Red giants are stars deprived of hydrogen in their core and shrinking, dying. The red dyeing stuff for natural dyeing comes from living organisms that have to die - roots of a plant madder and bodies of the cochineal insects. All these notions create tension of the colour red: beauty and decay, life and death.
Silk chiffon is chosen to be the material to absorb the red - for its origin and fragility. Silk is made of the cocoon fibres of an insect, Bombyx mori. The larva housing in such a cocoon never becomes a butterfly...
I tried out different recipes for obtaining red. The cochineal produces different tints of pink and the madder - different brownish reds. Using only simple mordants did not yield the vibrant red of blood. Red came out different every time never completely revealing its secret.
Red, Hole, Pocket
Hapa Zome
Faded Memories
May 2014, Artist in Residence in Tsarino, BulgariaÂ
The Voice Of...
Video, duration 3’47’’, text Work for the annual Rietveld Uncut event at Flemish Arts Centre De Brakke Grond in Amsterdam. The theme of the event was “Voice - Creature of Transition”.Â
Exhibition March 19 - March 23 2014 in De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam http://www.brakkegrond.nl/programma/1329
Brief history of the Voice of the National Anthem of USSR/Russia
1930-s A.Alexandrov composes the music 1944 - 1955 Anthem lyrics contain praises to Stalin 1955 - 1970 Anthem is performed wordless 1971 - 1990 Anthem lyrics celebrate the glory of Soviet Union 1990 - 2000 New Russia, new music, wordless Anthem 2000 - present USSR Anthem is back. New lyrics celebrate the glory of Russia
Source: Wikipedia.ru
The video uses footage of The Swan Lake ballet (music by Chaykovsky, performance by Kirov National ballet, found on youtube) and music of the National Anthem of USSR (recording of 1944 and a modern version, via muzofon.com).
Constant Companion
Two prayer chairs, unbleached cotton. Work for the annual Rietveld at the Old Church exhibition with a theme Constant Companion.Â
Exhibition March 16 - April 6 2014 in the Old Church (Oude Kerk) in Amsterdam http://www.oudekerk.nl/Â
I found two prayer chairs standing in the Mirror room, one of the few small spaces in the grand Old Church. For a few hundred years, starting from 1580, this room and these chairs were used for the blessing of the newlyweds. The two chairs had very short legs and cushions on the seats to assist kneeling, while the arm-rests and on the top rail were padded to give support to the elbows while praying.
Faith gives people support, strength and the feeling that someone is there to watch them and love them. Surrender and let go, kneel and pray and have trust - have faith. The ritual, the act of praying must have been giving a relief and hope.Â
I made a model of these chairs in textiles. Simple unbleached cotton is the material for toile, a modelling material used for try-outs in fashion. Slightly stiff from starch, the material permits fragile sculpting, while stitching, besides its functionality, allows creating a fragile supporting frame. The textile chairs keep the original shape relatively well, they stand upright, although unstable. The weight of the chair appeared too much for the little legs and they collapsed. The prayer chairs started kneeling themselves...Fragile as faith in these days, the prayer chairs are a mediator in contact with the divine. Do we need this contact? Can we establish this contact easily? Kneeling on the textile chairs will give you no support; your knees will painfully hit the stone of the church floor. Loss of faith, loss of structure, being left on your own – these are the questions I wanted to address in this work.Â
Red
December 2013 installation
Red
Autumn 2013
Three concepts: red colour, a hole and a pocket are transposed onto the body.
Red
Autumn 2013
The red bag with a hole plays with sensuality of the colour and ambiguity of a “hole”. What is public and what is private? What is hidden and what is exposed? Where is the line between the body and accessory?
Red
Autumn 2013
No matter where I go, no matter how hard I try, it’s always there. The imprint of red. The hierarchy. The only way. The coding. The programming. A censor’s stripe. Red.
Strawberries
Autumn 2013
Picking strawberries in England was an important lesson on how working harder can bring you no further. This is a tribute to all East European labourers that work in the West. Can you outwit the system and climb to the top of the hamster wheel if you run very-very hard?Â
The Island
Research about the Ainu of the island Hokkaido (Japan). Map of the Ainu.
Translation prize design
winning design of an annual prize issued by the literary translators workgroup (Werkgroep Literair vertalers, Vereniging van Letterkundigen) spring-summer 2013Â
The award ceremony took place on March 3, 2014 in De Balie, AmsterdamÂ
The workgroup of Literary translators of the Dutch Literary Society presents an annual award to promote and encourage the work of translators. The prize consists of two parts: Translation Angel is for a person or organisation which contributed to the profession of translator and Translation Devil is for a person or organisation which could have done so, but had not. Every few years a different artist is asked to design the prize. In 2013 the Rietveld Academie was approached for this interesting challenge. After a selection procedure, my design was chosen as the winning design.
My design is based on the following considerations: 1) The prize has two sides, the important difference is POTENTIAL. This potential is fully developed in the “Angel”, while the “Devil” has a similar hidden potential. 2) Knitting is like language. The loops are like letters, the rows are like words, the pattern forms sentences and paragraphs. 3) Round knitting tells a story, transformed and translated into a new entity, just like with literary translation. 4) The decisive factor in realizing the potential is a human action, an intervention. 5) One of the oldest shapes for a prize is a trophy. 6) In Old Greece the Olympic winners were given a trophy - a vase called amphora, filled with olive oil. One kind of amphoras had a curious feature - one side has red pattern on black background and the other side black pattern on red background, this kind of amphora became known as bilingual vase.
My design is one vase: in its Angel form the potential is realized and its golden glow glorifies the winner; in its Devil form the potential is hidden, ready to be transformed - just a human action is needed to turn the Devil into an Angel.Â
photo Scheryl Schurgers
photo Edith Diederiks
An article about the award ceremony (in Dutch): http://www.letterenfonds.nl/nl/entry/637/de-vertaler-als-auteur-en-auteur-als-vertaler
A video registration of the evening (Alya’s presentation starts at 1:32:50, in Dutch) http://player.vimeo.com/video/88101359?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0Â
Domestic / Patterns
spring 2013 text
Domestic. What does it mean, having a home? How do you take possession of a place? A house of a stranger was a starting point. Â
Domestic Patterns
Every house stores patterns, superficial patterns of object surfaces, but also deeper patterns. Life patterns. Habit patterns. Patterns of order and patterns of chaos, they give comfort or cause irritation. Some of these patterns change, others stay. The architectural patterns(1)Â form a grid, which roughly defines possible movements in the space. The subtle human movements within form the Movement pattern. Being invisible outside the moment of happening it leaves traces. Our movements are often intended for placing things and replacing them again. This action creates its own pattern. Thus, the invisible movement pattern leaves visible traces, which form the Traces of Movement pattern.
We constantly rearrange our things, grouping and ordering them, assigning them a place according to their function, or colour, or easy access or some emotion they trigger in us. Thus we constantly define and redefine our Living pattern. This pattern is superficial; it may look like orderly or chaotic decoration. Yet it has a deeper meaning and effect: it stores the memory of the action that originated it and a potential of further actions. The house of L. and R. is a typical Dutch family row house with a patch of a garden. A curious Dutch habit struck my eye there, the habit of using the staircase as practical memory storage: there were things on the stairs. As I was explained before, anyone going upstairs is supposed to take the stuff up as well(2). The objects on the stairs form curious still lives, not meant to be there, but suspended in the In-between pattern. Sometimes the objects become forgotten and a new pattern roots down into the domestic structure and becomes a part of it. As the object on the stair stands for a memory note, here is the Lost Memory pattern. R.’s father was a painter and his paintings are very much present in the house. They are memories and emotions suppressed in a piece of linen. Their presence forms a decisive pattern – a network of memories spread throughout the house, it becomes the Memory Web pattern.
The shapes and colours of the paintings give origin to a new pattern; matching the interior details, altering the hard and solid (as tiles or concrete) with soft and pliable (as paper and textiles) L. playfully connects the compressed memories to the present. Here we encounter the Past Meets the Present pattern.
The house is free of any orderly pretentions; it is far from this typical “designy” air of perfect order. A careless eye might call it full or messy. Yet, the patterns of objects reveal a carefully intended system brought about by a gentle yet decisive hand. This system creates the lively Orderly Chaos pattern. Talking to R. on my second visit I discovered a pattern, which I could not have perceived by myself. Arranging and combining things one creates not only an interior, but due to personal links between the mind and the objects a whole universe, existing in the interaction field between the mind and the space. Thus it becomes possible to enjoy one’s “little Florida”(3) on the attic of an old house next to a highway, despite the ambulance sirens and rising emergency helicopters. Thus, looking at old family photographs, a whole range of emotions and memories is brought about, creating this elusive and intangible Home pattern(4).
PS Many thanks to the family who kindly allowed me to explore their domestic patterns: House on Amstelveenseweg, Amsterdam, neighbourhood of VUMC R. (m) and L.(v), a lovely couple in their 60-s who happen to be the parents of a good friend.
1 Technical drawings for building a house present a pattern by itself, their realisation becomes a physical structure, which I call the architectural pattern here.
2 The source of my knowledge is a Dutch lady, born in 1940-s, this was a sacred rule in the house with nine children. 3 Yellow floor (sand) and blue ceiling (sky) and the paintings on the ceiling – R. called this space his little Florida.
4 The patterns mentioned here form neither strict categorization nor hierarchy. They may overlap and contain each other. Every aspect contains multiple facets, which allows multiple points of view and multiple pattern definitions.Â
Domestic / Home Capsules
Installation, dimensions variable Spring 2013
“What would you take with you if you were leaving forever?”, I asked R., a 60-something owner of the house I studied for the Domestic project. He had to think for a while. It was not an easy question. “You cannot take big things, can you”, he said. “I guess, it would be the paintings and drawings of my father. The smaller ones. And photos, family memories, these are the most precious things in the house.”
Memories. Images of the past. Traces of loved ones who grew up and changed. Traces of yourself when you were younger. Evidence of the moments together. Is this the feeling of home?
I made bags, more like sacks, to carry memories. You can easily put photographs, rolled up canvases and drawings in a textile sack. They are knitted, so filling them up makes them bigger allowing to add even more memories. The colours of the sacks are the colours of the living room of the house. I thought, the fleeing inhabitants of the house would appreciate having their familiar colours with them. The size of the sack is related to the amount of this particular colour in the room. For example, a big light yellow sack is a collection of the colour of the walls and ceiling and a tiny red one is a collection of the red bits (a red handbag, lady’s shoes and a cushion).
The title “Home capsule” is derived from “time capsule”, which is a “historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists or historians” (Wikipedia). And that is one of the main reasons of taking stuff with you when you are leaving forever. The anthropologist and historian here is yourself.Â