What is your Landscape?
2014
workshop at Nida Art School, Lithuania
object/model making, conversations and collages
"I invite you to work spatially which means working with depth, height and width. To work with something you can take into your hands, that has an upside and a downside, something you can look through, or maybe not.
For many centuries, many different disciplines have researched and explored the topic of landscape (literature, fine art, narratives, geography etc). After all, ‘landscape’ is something everybody can discover on their own, and anew. The personal notion of landscape is open to every individual’s senses, feeling and mind.
We start with a very simple definition of ‘landscape': As soon as you leave a building and step underneath the sky, you are in a landscape. And where are you in this, what is your landscape?
I would like to know if there is a moment, an experience, that has left a strong impression on you. This notion might be situated in a special place or taking place under the open sky. I’m asking for a memory that is connected to the landscape around you. Examples of lasting impressions of experiences could be: learning to cycle. The moment when you could ride your bike on your own, the notion of speed, freedom, being proud to master this difficult task. Or the memory of running away and hiding in the forest, or even getting lost. The mix of excitement and fear. Maybe it felt like being caught in a bundle of black wool….
You may want to make a sketch to start with, use adjectives to describe your ‘landscape of memory’. However, the final result should be threedimensional, a little sculpture, like a spatial picture. I have brought lots of different materials, wood, cloth, string, paint, plaster, branches, hammer and nails – it’s all in the box.
Later on, we have a look at each other’s object and everyone describes where he/she sees her/himself in relation to the object that has been made. Then I photograph every object with a macro lense, to get the impression as if being inside the object. Photocollages will then illustrate your position within your own ‘landscape of memory’."
