Kunstpodium T - 'A Body That May Not Exist'

Maurice Meewisse departs from the curi­o­si­ty on how peo­p­le com­pre­hend and expe­rien­ce their sur­roun­dings as well as how his­to­ries rela­te to each other. Presented in the exhi­bi­ti­on is a set of hot water bott­les, which Maurice and his mother, Addy Meewisse-Mourits, made with archae­o­lo­gi­cal cera­mic frag­ments found in The Hague, his pla­ce of birth. Using clay, as well as Addy’s exten­si­ve expe­rien­ce as a pot­ter, they recom­po­sed parts of Maurice’s ana­to­my to craft pro­to-archae­o­lo­gi­cal arte­facts. Their work was inspi­red by a visit to the Archaeological Museum of Paphos in Cyprus, who­se col­lec­ti­on dis­plays ter­ra­cot­ta ves­sels and body-part-sha­ped hot water and oil bott­les dated from the Roman era.

Additionally, Maurice built the sup­por­ting struc­tu­res nee­ded for the exhi­bi­ti­on, inclu­ding the lad­der and plat­form used for Didianne’s performance.

Elisa Verkoelen is inte­rested in the hol­low sha­pe of shells, the silen­ces that sprout from con­ver­sa­ti­ons, and the lef­to­ver almond-sha­ped soap we wash our hands with. Her prac­ti­ce is that of a visu­al artist and wri­ter, focu­sing on the poe­tics of domes­ti­ci­ty, memo­ry and the phy­si­cal remem­bran­ce of eve­ry­day life and grief. Elisa appro­a­ches a wide ran­ge of mate­ri­als: from found wood and paper to cast bron­ze, rope and soap. In the exhi­bi­ti­on she pre­sents seve­r­al pie­ces, inclu­ding a lengthy rope loop­ed into a log, a subt­le pro­jec­ti­on of a bre­a­thing body, and a set of deli­ca­te­ly car­ved wooden soap hol­ders. Throughout her inter­ven­ti­ons, she devel­ops the lexi­con of car­rying and holding.

Beeke van Wingaarden​’s instal­la­ti­ons play with the expecta­ti­ons of archi­tec­tu­re and often inclu­de per­for­man­ces by the vie­wers. Her prac­ti­ce unfolds as a spa­ce whe­re human pre­sen­ce, tem­po­ra­ry natu­re, and con­ce­al­ment are explo­red through mass-pro­du­ced mate­ri­als and con­struc­ted envi­ron­ments. At Cas-co, Beeke wor­ked site-spe­ci­fi­cally, enhan­cing cer­tain attri­bu­tes of the pre-exis­ting sce­no­grap­hy, and invi­ted visi­tors to walk along a con­stric­ted cor­ri­dor made of wood and plas­ter­boards. The instal­la­ti­on bor­rows from the dis­com­fort of phy­si­cal con­s­traints and CCTV sur­veil­lan­ce by delaying and fading the human pre­sen­ce through broad­cas­ting it on a monitor.

Didianne Leusink intro­du­ces her prac­ti­ce as an eco­sy­s­tem whe­re mate­ri­als, pro­ces­ses and ide­as meta­bo­li­se each other — a living orga­nism in which ener­gy flows towards a con­tex­tu­al res­pon­se. How can lis­te­ning be felt and expe­rien­ced beyond our ears? — is one of Didianne’s key questions. 

At Cas-co, she devel­o­ped a sound and sculp­tu­ral instal­la­ti­on, which inclu­des four pil­lars atta­ched to the cei­ling from which the sound ema­na­tes. These are made from liquid latex made with the floor’s imprints and sha­ped into monu­men­tal yet fra­gi­le columns that can be tou­ched gently. 

During the ope­ning, each spea­ker is mixed live using pre-recor­ded sam­ples which she gat­he­red during the collective’s resi­d­en­cy. Her recor­dings focu­sed on qui­et pla­ces hid­den from urban acti­vi­ty, such as a monas­tery she encoun­te­red in Lisbon, as well as cave-like, echo­ing and drip­ping sounds, that are evo­ca­ti­ve of an encom­pas­sing mem­bra­ne. She also col­la­bo­ra­ted with Elisa to record bre­a­thing and blo­wing sounds using Maurice’s vessels.

Yan-Bing Wu​’s prac­ti­ce entails moving ima­ges, object-making, and text. Her wri­ting and visu­al sto­ry­tel­ling trans­cend fact and fic­ti­on, and often depart from sto­ries told by rela­ti­ves in her home­to­wn, in China. Yan-Bing’s nar­ra­ti­ons inclu­de per­so­nal sto­ry­tel­ling and eve­ry­day expe­rien­ces, and bring together frag­ments of memo­ry and ima­gi­na­ti­on whe­re time and struc­tu­re are held open, whe­re things are allo­wed to exist as they are.

The works pre­sen­ted here stem from a sto­ry she was told by her grand­mo­ther, about the grand­dad she never saw, who­se body’s left side had a hea­vier weight: a slight imba­lan­ce cau­sed by a ghost­ly pre­sen­ce. The Left-side Body is a small publi­ca­ti­on you will be able to find by loo­king clo­se­ly at the wooden sculpture. 

Throughout their col­lec­ti­ve tra­jec­to­ry, the five artists sha­red sto­ries and visi­ted each others stu­dio, during one of their gatherings Yan-Bing sha­red the sto­ry of Suō gǔ gōng, which beca­me a pivo­tal ele­ment in the exhi­bi­ti­on. This sto­ry can be read from one of the envelopes.