The journey starts from the definition: Words set perimeters, but also bridge rivers, carve new paths. The map leads to wondrous and sometimes fantastical transformations in the garden of Buitenplaats Brienenoord: Masks — expressions of virtuality, of the possible as a reality, built with everyday means. Audio pieces guide you through a personal, evolving relationship with labels and exhibit the ways in which I reject, reclaim or reinterpret words. Your walk between points is a performative manifestation of (inner) dialogue, the space where meaning and identity are negotiated.
Start (audio)
The start is a point in time and a point in space surrounded, preceded, followed, extended, completed by other points. I have been called, among others, “complicated”, “naive”, “strong”, “caring”, “smart”, “stubborn”, “crazy” and “wild”. These saturated by context, circumstance and intention words are my starting points in a journey of performing and transforming meaning.
Masks
Masks are used in my practice as a primary metaphor, a materialization of the answer to the question “What is the way out?” of the boundaries labels set for identity. The whole process of mask-making relates to the building and re-building of identity, to the perpetual performative and interactive process of looking at what is available, picking and combining elements, (re-)imagining and creating new forms of existing. Materials that are salvaged, recycled, forgotten or not fitting anywhere else; carton, paper, scraps from old textiles and broken toys, are used to express virtuality, our endless potential for change and re-invention. In this sense, masks are not used to conceal but to create space and potential.
A final take on biases: The third and last part of presenting Labels, but not for clothes focuses on "the way out" of the confines of labels. After discussing the impact of labels especially during the formative years in the first pubic moment, and systemic biasing in the second, this last exhibition focuses on affordances, performativity and virtuality.
