Eight masks, eight labels, eight stops in the audio walk I prepared for the XPUB graduation exhibition.

Identitours: A transmedia audio walk [external application]

The Journey
My 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 my inner dialogue, the space
where meaning and identity are negotiated.


The 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.


The Masks
Masks are used in my practice as a primary metaphor, a materialization
of the deeply personal 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 relational 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, an
endless potential for change and re-invention. In this sense, masks
are not used to conceal but to create space and potential.

The publication: Shifting Identities

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 public moment, and systemic biasing in the second, this last exhibition focuses on affordances, performativity and virtuality.

Leeszaal in Rotterdam hosted on Monday 24 March 2025 a very important public moment.

Among the works exhibited was the second part of the project "Labels, but not for clothes".

What was presented:

A "game", demonstrating how systemic exclusion supports labeling, based on the actual directives of the latest US administration.

A video piece with main source material TV ads from the 80's and 90's setting impossible stereotypes through repetition.

As part of a bigger, collective project and following the subjective map of Rotterdam this project was adapted to fit the city of Groningen. Inspired as always by infrastructure, it grew to include Eemshaven and to pose questions regarding the cost of development and of our increasing needs in energy and data. Below is the video produced from footage of Eemshaven and the city of Groningen, juxtaposing liminal and gentrified (or on the verge of gentrification) spaces and the ever-expanding energy and data factories of Eemshaven.

An ever-changing mobile population
Our mixed paths
Our lost orientation
Making history that soaks into
An angry earth


A greedy machine is marching
From the end of the world
A new order
A dark mirror.
 
We remain

Stoic like oaks
Entangled
In deep rooted feeling

Or

Anchored like house boats
In half-deserted ports
Rocking with the waft
The ebb and the tide.

In a playful manner, the project also speaks about and celebrates the mundane but magical corners as met by the curious eyes of a stranger.

Here are some pictures of the project in its natural environment: SIGN Project Space, commissioned and hosted the work from 26 September to 6 October 2024. The relevant object which compliments the video was created with SIGN's DIY approach in mind. It incorporates elements of temporality, temporariness, orientation as experienced from the viewpoint of the visitor, thoughts on the big issues of the city and 3D-printed GPS logs.