Hair Tree (2017) explores trust, genetics, and mapping in reflection to "Who is in my family?" "Who are they?" "Do they feel the same way about me as I do about them?" I wrote letters to family members in Taiwan, USA, and South Africa asking them to send me a snippet of their hair. I received 72 lockets. From the gathering process, my questions were somewhat answered, but even more questions were raised. The texture and color of a strand of hair, says a lot, but all the microscopic and hidden elements wanted me to find out more about how forced connections and freedom to associate are created.
After the first installation of Hair Tree, I was interested in going beyond the DNA, beyond the immediacy of contact and see further where familial ties comes in on a deeper level. I asked everybody who had contributed a lock of their hair from Hair Tree to send me a memory. I asked each family member,
"If you could keep one memory about us, what would it be?"
The memories have been trickling in from all corners of the world. As they keep coming in, I'm filling the spaces between the knot with my memories about me and that family member too. Look above to see the Intertwined installation at Trapesa.
Intertwined is a conversation piece between memories that have been lost and found, retold, reheard from a different perspective. How you want to remember somebody is in your power. Click here to see the full collection of memories and feel free to comment on them. By opening up this dialogue, I feel that I have gotten closer to these family members as I really had NO idea they even took notice, cared, held onto certain moments that happened between us. And on the other hand, great conversations about what is valuable time spent together and what constitutes a memory has been opened up. As I'm in the middle of Intertwined, I feel like I have found more peace in that fact that I cannot control how I am remembered. Yet, I can choose how I want to remember You.
Intertwined is a conversation piece between memories that have been lost and found, retold, reheard from a different perspective. How you want to remember somebody is in your power. Click here to see the full collection of memories and feel free to comment on them. By opening up this dialogue, I feel that I have gotten closer to these family members as I really had NO idea they even took notice, cared, held onto certain moments that happened between us. And on the other hand, great conversations about what is valuable time spent together and what constitutes a memory has been opened up. As I'm in the middle of Intertwined, I feel like I have found more peace in that fact that I cannot control how I am remembered. Yet, I can choose how I want to remember You.
Hair Tree and Intertwined are works made during the time I have been in the collective Mechanics of Conformity (MOC).
MECHANICS OF CONFORMITY (MOC) Osa II
Catalysti-taiteilijoiden ja Objekti 2018 –festivaalin yhteisprojekti Yhteisprojektissa tarkastelemme hiuksia – niiden runsautta, puuttumista, leikkaamista, peittämistä, kasvattamista, värjäämistä ja hoitamista – sekä yksilöllisyyden että yhdenmukaisuuden ilmentymänä. Taiteellisena välineenä ja merkitysten välittäjänä hiukset voivat viestiä sekä minuudesta että toiseudesta. Hiukset voivat siis joko ylläpitää tai horjuttaa perinteistä tapaa erotella ihmisiä sukupuolen, rodun, kansallisuuden tai uskonnon perusteella. Näin katsottuna hiuksiin kiteytyy globaaleja, ja myös hyvin subjektiivisia, sosiaalisia ja henkilökohtaisia merkityksiä. Tässä yhteisprojektissa neljä naista tutkii identiteetin, sukulaisuuden, havaitsemisen, vapauttamisen ja toiseuden käsitteitä hiusten kautta. MOC-kollektiivin muodostaavat Catalysti-taiteilijat Rosamaria Bolom, Edwina Goldstone, Sepideh Rahaa ja Arlene Tucker. MOC-kolleektiivi on työskennellyt hius-teeman ympärillä vuoden 2017 alkupuolelta lähtien. Jos kysyt naiselta hänen hiuksistaan, hän saattaa kertoa sinulle elämäntarinansa. Jos kysyt useammalta naiselta heidän hiuksistaan, saatat kuulla koko maailmanhistorian. Miten he katsovat meitä? Miten me katsomme itseämme? Miten muut katsovat toisiaan? Kuvaukset taiteilijoiden teoksista Arlene Tucker: Intertwined tarkastelee perheenjäsenten toisiaan kohtaan tuntemaa sukulaisuutta, joka ei riipu yhteisestä DNA:sta. Perheen käsite laajenee koskemaan henkilöitä, jotka muodostavat perheen omasta valinnastaan. Teos on jatkoa Arlene Tuckerin teokselle Hair Tree (2017), joka toi yhteen perheenjäseniä neljästä eri maanosasta hiusnäytteiden avulla. Nyt Tucker katsoo perheen sisään ja kampaa läpi muistoja tavoitteenaan ymmärtää, miten ja mihin solmukohdat muodostuvat. Tucker toivoo teoksen avaavan dialogia perheestä ja perheen kesken. Edwina Goldstone: Watching Me, Watching You, Watching Me näyttää useista vaiheista koostuvan kuvan metamorfoosin, joka seuraa taiteilijan päätöksenteon ja muistiprosessin yllättäviä käänteitä. Taiteilija yhdistää toisiinsa menneitä ja nykyisiä keskusteluja aiheesta ’hiukset’, jolloin esiin nousevat aiheeseen liittyvät ambivalentit ja keskenään ristiriitaiset ajatukset sekä sekavat tunteet. Toisiinsa yhdistettyinä ja sarjaksi animoituina kuvat muodostavat kuvitteellisen narratiivin, joka kasvaa ja muuttuu ajan ja pohdinnan myötä. Romamaría Bolom: Viime vuoden Mechanics of Conformity -yhteisprojektin jälkeen jäin pohtimaan syvemmin sitä, miten normeja ja arvoja ujutetaan käyttäytymiseemme lapsuudesta lähtien. Mieleeni nousi kuvasarja. Muistin kolme tehokasta rituaalia, joiden normatiiviset käsitykset vaikuttavat käyttäytymiseen. Me recuerdo a mi misma // I remember my self // Muistan itseni on rituaali yhteiskunnalle, joka läpi elämän tuomitsee meidät ja opettaa käyttäytymään tietyllä tavalla. Rangaistuksen tai syrjimisen pelon vuoksi käyttäytymismallit vakiintuvat ja muuttuvat normeiksi. Sepideh Rahaa: Entangled- ME & HAIR on jatkuva projekti, jossa Rahaa käsittelee omaa identiteettiään ja sen suhdetta hiuksiin. Taiteilijan omiin muistoihin ja kokemuksiin pohjautuvassa projektissa hän pohtii, millainen rooli hiuksilla on arkisessa vuorovaikutuksessa ja miten ulkomuoto voi määrittää tapaamme olla – tai olla olematta – yhteydessä toisiin ihmisiin. Rahaa käyttää projektissaan imaisukeinoina performanssia, runoutta ja videota. |
MECHANICS OF CONFORMITY (MOC) Part II
A collaboration between Catalysti artists and Objekti festival 2018 Our collective project investigates the excess, absence, cutting, covering, growing, coloring and grooming of hair as both the materialization of individuality and of conformity. As an artistic medium and mediator of meaning, hair can communicate a sense of self and otherness. In this sense, it can either uphold or upset conventional distinctions between divisions of gender, race, region and religion. From these issues, hair epitomizes a global yet subjective social and personal significance. Within this collaboration, four women explore concepts of identity, relationships, perceptions, liberation and otherness through hair. Ask a woman about her hair, and she just might tell you the story of her life. Catalysti artists who have shaped MOC collective are Rosamaria Bolom, Edwina Goldstone, Sepideh Rahaa and Arlene Tucker. MOC collective has been created around the subject of hair and from early 2017. Ask a woman about her hair, and she just might tell you the story of her life. Ask a whole bunch of women about their hair, and you could get a history of the world. How do they look at us? How do we look at ourselves? How do the others look at each other? Description of the works by each artist Arlene Tucker: Intertwined looks at how family members relate to each other despite their shared DNA. Here, the concept of family also extends to individuals welcomed by choice. This piece is a continuation of Arlene Tucker’s Hair Tree (2017), which gathered family members scattered over four continents by collecting cuttings of their hair. Moving inwards, she attempts to comb through memories to understand where and how knots are formed. Tucker hopes this will further open dialogue about family and with family. Edwina Goldstone: Watching Me, Watching You, Watching Me, follows the metamorphosis of an image through many stages as it follows the twists and turns of the artist's decision-making and memory process as she recalls and connects past & present conversations about ‘Hair’, with all the ambivalent, contradictory ideas and mixed feelings that are attached to it. Added together as an animated sequence the drawings form a peculiar imaginative narrative that never remains constant but grows and morphs with thought and time. Romamaría Bolom: Last year, Mechanics of Conformity Collaboration lead me to a deeper reflection about how norms and values are introjected into our behavior since our childhood. A series of images came to me. I could remember three efficient rituals whose normative beliefs affect behavior. Me recuerdo a mi misma // I remember my self // Muistan itseni, is a mask and a ritual for a society that judges us and teaches us how to behave ourselves from childhood to old age. Also, not to be punished or excluded that are established and normalized. Sepideh Rahaa: Entangled- ME & HAIR is an ongoing project where Rahaa is addressing her personal identity and its relation to hair, where hair plays a significant role in her daily life interacting with others in the society, how we connect and disconnect based on our appearance. Artist has used series of life memories and experiences conveying the core concept through performing art, poetry and video. |