Author: Ruby Jewel

In Material culture studies, objects are considered markers for culturally defined differences, identity markers and strongly culture-bearing. Through the three days workshop ‘All you need is…’ students will use objects as inspiration and as questions, to sharpen their awareness towards the network of material things, which we use to shape our world and which in turn shape us as humans.

As an attempt to uncover essential meaning in existing small matter. The students at the workshop were asked: What are objects capable of? What is the most important role of the objects you are making? What values do you cherish? What values would you like to implement into your own work? What story is worth telling?

Gitte Nygaard, artist and maker: I work across disciplines to expand conversations and inspire awareness of the relationship between ourselves and the objects we live with. My work moves beyond the gallery, connects the seemingly unexpected and explores the often overlooked. I create artworks, functional objects, collections, commissioned pieces and project based collaborations. 

For more information: www.gittenygaard.com

Body Extensions: On Corporeal Topographies

The work of Barbara Graf is tightly involved with the body. The intense relationship to the body is explored through Anatomical Garments, body objects and enveloping bandages. In Anatomical Garments, anatomical structures are sewn into fabrics, these surround the body, and the physical space is turned upside down, expanded or rearranged. While many of the works ‘dress‘ the body, they are rather to be understood as body extensions: Shells that completely wrap the body, transform the artist into a sculptural figure and as a second skin determine the body’s position. These sculptural constructions can be disassembled into its individual parts, and come with a manual that resembles technical instructions. All of the elements together while operating as textile body-shells, are at the same time a conceptual art work, as well as a made-to-measure bag which transforms the sculpture into a travel kit.

Barbara Graf is an artist and lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in the Textile Department. In her work she investigates body representations and develops flexible sculptures as a second skin. Her main media include drawing, sculpture, photography and film. Since 2004 she has been working in artistic research projects dealing with medical issues. She is currently developing her artistic doctoral thesis Stitches and Sutures on the visualisation of body perception at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
http://www.barbara-graf.at/

Please join us over zoom Apr 26, 2021 05:30 PM Amsterdam https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5358384261?pwd=cE5hcFJWTjVSd1Frc0xRY0UwbmgzZz09

Meeting ID: 535 838 4261 Passcode: 568094

Often times I’ve been asked to work in some really particular places. In sites, situations and contexts in which the agency of art struggles against a prevalent and dominant other. Perhaps that other is an aesthetic, other times an agenda, or maybe a history. In this presentation I will use the notion of gesture to talk though the works I made in some of these contexts. 

Scottish/Danish artist Edward Clydesdale Thomson is based in Rotterdam. His practice addresses contemporary conflicts of time by rethinking and reshaping the space and conditions of his artistic production along durational lines. His work is often concerned with the places and objects on the margins – physically, socially or symbolically – of outside and inside, of wild and tamed landscapes, of decoration or function. Be that a patterned fabric, a window blind, a gate, a washing line, a garden, or a sense of identity. He has exhibited at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, and the Malmo Konstmuseum. Notable solo projects include Grazer Kunstverein is moving; Grazer Kunstverein, Austria; wild care, tame neglect, Frankendael Foundation; Nothin Shakin but the Leaves on the Trees, Marabouparken konsthall, Sweden; and causa finalis at Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam. He is joint head of Fine Art at BEAR, ArtEZ, Arnhem. 

The lecture is part of a field project for the fist year of the department, lead by Sonja Bäumel, and will be streamed from the StrandLab Almere. Friday, April 16 , 15:00 -16:30 join via this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87938891247