riparian
Photography & Video Installation. 2022.
Show as part of Currency: Photography Beyond Capture, the Hamburg Triennale of Photography.
Link to Exhibition Guide
In this installation, the mirrors glow, all fragments are active and attentive, the narrator is present, stories, connections and indexes are illuminating. How does the reflection of oneself in an intimate space create unforeseen bonds that transcend the self, undoing the myth of Narcissus?
The artist invokes constellations that stream through space and time in the company of intimate souls. Working with subjects that are livened through encounters with her, but who carry cosmic and timeless spells, they become her intimate collaborators. Like the floodplains living contiguous to the river, merging with it in moments, the artist’s subjects morph with elements and histories of her building, which was designed and built by her mother and late father in the 1980’s. The building’s shaft is where light enters the center of the house and where all the water flows upwards and downwards through the pipes. Like a mirror, it is a transient space of re-discovery and of unceasing re-generation.
Alongside what they tell, the works of this installation signify ways of seeing, beyond their framework as objects, ascribed history and assigned space.
Image above: mirror and womb: notfa. Photography. 100x70cm.
Image above: stills from “the house of breeding citrus”. Video. 4.44min. (Please ask artist for video access on Vimeo.)
the house of breeding citrus
Video, 4.44min, 2022.
“Noctua”, an ancient sky constellation that is no longer recognised, takes the shape of a little owl at the tail of the large constellation “Hydra”. Elements and stories in this house recognise the constellation Noctua in their nightly presence and they are working on reviving her image and protective role in the sky.
The house and its inhabitants seek knowledge within their bodies, to learn about who they are. They try to find paths and meanings that define them outside contemporary political and social discourses, including on colonialism, capitalism and the different levels of blindness to them.
In their capture, those living in the house chart pathways that preceded their emergence and yet are embedded within them. The movement that propels their coming into being or appearance travels in space; its essence lies within, from the moment of gestation.
Detail of Installation as part of the exhibition Currency: Photography Beyond Capture. May – September 2022. Deichtorhallen Hamburg.