NOON- or midday is the moment of equilibrium, a word that describes the moment in the day that is neither morning or evening, a form of middle ground that implies a value free equality. The word itself a palindrome, forward and backwards, upside down and right side up the same, further fulfills a sense of neutrality.
Led by the understanding that one only exists because of its opposite and that everything involved in what we consider being, is part of a continuous exchange of energy in the attempt to find a neutral and stable form I engage materials and natural phenomena to create conditions of process. I probe into opposites in the hope to discover a balance somewhere between extremes.
Through my work I give form to the impermanent and transitory based on a desire for a changing social experience I observe materials like glass, salts, water and the body, to engage a materials transmutation as a symbol for the complex and shifting nature of reality.
I my research I connect the past layers of reality in the environment to how they are manifested as physical substance in the present state of nature. I am further interested in experience and disharmony of historical realities, seem through the eyes of different groups present in the history of a place. I connect these multitude of experiences through subtle visuals in my work. In my video bodies and materials interchangingly take on the same characters.
The fictional narrative of NOON is inspired by the upstate NY history and geology, the influence and presence of water and salt in the region and the ongoing conflicts of different interest between different groups of the population, spanning from the past to the presence. The project draws from the tensions of past events in nature and how they shape the present landscape of the area, as a symbolical rendering of the tensions of the social human landscape of the region and their stories that tied in to the nature and resources.
In the fall of 2016 I was invited to a residency at the Corning Inc. Science and Research Center, hosted jointly with the Corning Museum of Glass.
For next six month I traveled to Corning for one week every month to work on projects using glasses and glass-ceramic compounds created by the Scientists for the industry and military. During my time at Corning I worked on creating the objects for the characters. I recently finished a residency at the Sculpture Space where I focused on filming the video project, both inside the studio and during extended field trips into the upstate NY Finger lakes region the Adirondacks, Saratoga Springs and Lake Ontario. Although the project is directly linked to observations, the fictional story is my response to impressions generated during the past two years. Places important to the research where in particular:
The Paleontological Research Institute ( Museum of the Earth) near Ithaca NY
Skä•noñh, Great Law of Peace Center, Liverpool NY
The Saratoga Springs Public Library, NY
The Women’s Rights National Historical Park, Seneca Falls, NY
Taughannock State Park,NY
Inspired by the Haudenosaunee’s creation story in which a female character- sky woman gives birth to twins, a good twin and an evil twin, one control’s the day and one controls the night, the video is based around three characters. The dipper (the cloaked body), water (the light body) and salt (the dark body). Each of them has a tool, the dipper carries a glass replica of a historic water gathering tool found in the archive at Saratoga Springs. The Water character carries the heart in the form of a black glass block and the Salt character carries the brain, a sculpture grown from salt crystals. The scenes shift back and forth between outdoor environments and fictional indoor scenes. The outdoor scenes were all shot during the winter,
the time of the highest contrast between the white snow and the dark ground in upstate NY. The video is almost colorless, dominated by white, black and tones of blue, into which the characters blend, as shadows and silhouettes. The motions are simple, Butoh dance like, the actions resist fixity and use slow controlled gestures, paired with the stark winter landscapes they are set in, I aim to create a space of contract, but also a place of assimilation.
Through my project I portrait the longing for the hermaphrodite, the neutral and circular, drawing from Nietzsche’s understanding of the subconscious, the metaphysical quest of alchemy and the believe in the intangible presence of reoccurring cycles in everything, from history and seasons to animal migration and the ocean currents, the video draws parallels between different observations that present the same patterns of transition and reemergence in a place of transience and permanence.
Below some video stills from the raw- unedited video footage. The piece will be finished for a solo show at the Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle in January and February 2019.
