Evas Weg im Rahmen apokalyptischer Zeitenwende: Die Geschichte einer Urmutter im Kräfteverhältnis der Welt kann aus vielen Perspektiven erzählt werden. Wir können auf die Auswirkungen patriarchaler Unterdrückung schauen oder die ungeheure Kraft weiblicher Lebendigkeit feiern.
About the White Flag Collective – past and future activities
The founding artists of the collective: Katharina Lökenhoff (GER), Karem Ibrahim (EG, UK), Pat van Boeckel (NL) and Karin van der Molen (NL) started The White Flag Art Project upon their meeting during Dakar Biennial in Senegal (2022). It became a starting point for deep research and collaboration with others. The ongoing project doesn’t choose sides other than humanitarian and ecotopian. At the same time it is aware of its position in a world that is driven by consumerism, capitalism and manipulated opinions. The artists of the collective raise the white flag to ‘stay with the trouble’. It means that the complexity of contemporary global problems require a PAUSE, an abstinence of easy opinions and temporary solutions. The white flag serves as a symbol of surrender to not-knowing, the white as a place of roaming in a place to explore a core humanity and empathy. August-October 2023 In the successful kick-off exhibition in Kunsthaus Essen,Germany the White Flag Collective sought to foster new perspectives, understanding and connections on the theme. The exhibition consisted of individual and collaborative works, driven by questioning this white flag philosophy, history and new ideas.There was an extensive open exchange in meetings and a symposium with the audience. September 2023 White Flag exhibition in Gallery Gublia, Essen, Germany January 2024 White Flag Art Project in Art Centre De Kolk, Spaarndam, The Netherlands February 2024 White Flag Art Project Lectures in Art Centre De Kolk, Spaarndam, The Netherlands Future developments of The White Flag Art Project are under construction with curators for ARD Art Space, in Cairo, and La Neomudéjar in Madrid. https://whiteflagartprojectcom.wordpress.com/
works – pictures
Kunsthaus Essen 2023
On the wall of the room it reads:
„INANNA, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
heard the call down into the depths.
At the end of her journey down
she hung as rotting flesh on a hook.
In total surrender she was helped
by small figures, the mourners.
…
You are invited to write down a word of „Surrender“.
The word „surrender“ can have a negative connotation, a flavor of helpless submission. Here, however, this ability rather means a letting go, which only makes a new beginning possible by pausing:. Coming to one’s senses and stepping out of a system in order to be able to develop new perspectives and impulses.
The work refers to the oldest Babylonian myth of „Inanna“, a goddess who was the model for the Egyptian Isis, the Greek Aphrodite and the Nordic Freya. Here, for the first time, a process of descent into an underworld is thematized as a self-encounter with subsequent resurrection. The myth confronts what is not seen in everyday life: secret desires and unfamiliar abysses, celebrated despair and avoidance strategies learned through social demands.
My „Room of Inanna“ is skinned with images of this process as a kind of map. On all sides of the room, guardians of this journey can be seen. Countless needles protrude from the body of the one, delicate and brutal at the same time. The wax figures of the mourners stand by the travelers, accompanying us, past a tomb-like metal bed of salt. The decisive thing is the impulse to action, to carve a word into the wax that makes letting go possible.
The journey of Inanna can lead to peace through the surrender of what usually keeps us from feeling that peace. The longing for this space arose in me in confrontation with current reports of war and other catastrophes and the resulting painful question: Can the art that we have seen in our lives in countless museums, art fairs, etc., in the event of war or other unbearable catastrophes, give us peace?
The work category Book mainly comprises book paintings from a research project on creation myths. Further information will be published shortly.
Die Werkkategorie Books umfasst vor allem Buchübermalungen aus einer Forschungsarbeit zu Schöpfungsmythen. Weitere informationen werden zeithnah veröffentlicht.
…
The category Texts publishes reflections on aesthetic and social issues, primarily from the field of social sculpture.
In der Werkkategorie Texts werden Überlegungen im Zusammenhang mit ästhetisch-sozialen Fragestellungen und primär aus dem Themengebiet der der Sozialen Plastik veröffentlicht.
Venice
pigeons fighting for a peach stone
two chinese bridesmaids
overflowing water
a woman´s body
Venedig
Tauben kämpfen um einen Pfirsichkern
zwei chinesische Brautjungfern
Wasser überströmend
ein Frauenkörper
Evas Weg im Rahmen apokalyptischer Zeitenwende: Die Geschichte einer Urmutter im Kräfteverhältnis der Welt kann aus vielen Perspektiven erzählt werden. Wir können auf die Auswirkungen patriarchaler Unterdrückung schauen oder die ungeheure Kraft weiblicher Lebendigkeit feiern.
Created in Istanbul 2012 in collaboration with Merve Cantürk, combining the sound of the city, nature impressions and my drawings regarding apocalyptic scenarios.
INSTALLATIONS
Installations play a central role within the fields of work. A current example is “Inanna’s Room” from the White Flag exhibition at the Kunsthaus Essen 2023. Other installations include ‘Just Now’ at the Off-Biennale ‘Something Else’ in Cairo in 2018 and ‘Evas Weg’ in Langenberg in 2022.
Installationen spielen in den Arbeitsbereichen eine zentrale Rolle. Ein aktuelles Beispiel ist „Inannas Zimmer” aus der Ausstellung „White Flag” im Kunsthaus Essen 2023.
Andere Installationen waren z.B. “Just now” auf der Off Biennale “Something Else” in Cairo 2018 und “Evas Weg” 2022 in Langenberg.
…
The question ‘What is a human being?’ appears again and again. “Along constants and fault lines, the exhibition creates different perspectives on borders and transitions as encounters with the Other. A balancing act that sometimes leads to existential tipping points where there is a risk of slipping. A fine line that can lead to getting lost in the world or falling into oneself. In free fall, this also means: tilting into the inside. A state that points into the open, into a groundlessness and boundlessness, without safe railings or landmarks. A collapse into consciousness that transcends words. Like an inward gaze, which can be delimiting towards the inside and can mean confinement towards the outside.”
Julia Martel
