"Kopie - Documented Now!"
De Brakke Grond catalogue (interview)
About My Work
I work on location and through the analyses and interpretation of a given space I make site & context specific works, which result in installations or performances. What I try to do on each site is to make something that is already there present in a way that it becomes experienceable for the public. I create site responsive environments for an experience and possible interaction of the visitors, inviting them to alter their perception to be able to discover new aspects of the given reality by taking an active part in production of meaning.
My work deals with an ever-changing nature of things and concepts of space and time, beauty, impermanence and memory. The form echoes the content, my work is different from moment-to-moment and impermanent being specific to the particular place and time. I am interested in investigating our perception of ourselves and the space around us as well as notions of absence and presence. Issues such as borders, separations and interconnectivity are reoccurring themes. Personal and cultural memory and associations play an important role addressing issues of perception, communication, language and gender.
I deal with both the inherent poetics as well as the politics of the space. I reformulate the space by adding, taking away or switching things around usually working with taken-for-granted aspects of specific location, making spatial interventions such as blocking and separating, framing and misplacing. Improvisation is a key word to describe my attitude towards the given space, would it be installation or performance I make. We improvise when we cease to know what is going to happen and it happens to me every time I approach a new site, where I start blank with whatever is given, including myself, audience and materials at hand.
A careful observation of the space as it is and the meaning of the location is a starting point of my work. Staying receptive to the smallest details allows the space to reveal its unique qualities for discovery of beauty in its unconventional, imperfect and impermanent properties. An architectural characteristic or a certain defect could trigger my imagination, evoke a memory or an association, which is further translated into the piece. In this process intellectual and intuitive research goes hand in hand, where the history of the place as well as its present condition and current use is yet another layer of the investigation. I work conceptually and not bound to any medium or technique. It is the space that dictates the choice of material, which is the most suitable to make invisible things manifest in the given situation. I prefer to use materials from my immediate surroundings or trivial materials like sticky tape, sewing thread or plastic sheeting. I aim to manipulate the viewer's perception and mood by confronting one's expectations. I transform the space by minimal and subtle spatial gesture, emphasising something what is always there creating a place for the mental space and time for a moment of stillness, bringing attention to the present moment and one's own presence. My artwork denies the expected functionality of the object or space, instead functions to stop the viewer caught in the habitual perception and unleash something that is normally rushed through and suppressed, evoking daydreaming, memory, associations and imagination.