Figures of Imagination --

Maria Belova, Jona Lingitz, Brooklyn J. Pakathi, Michi Schmidl, Iris Writze

curated by SHE SAID

Opening: November 11, 18.00 – 20.00
On view: November 12 – 27, 2022

The Vienna November fog is inert, opaque and blurs contrasts and contours. Among the different sensory impressions of a situation, the brain can filter the ones it considers most important at that moment.  These impressions become the foreground, the "figure", and can thus be made visible. Figure means at the same time structure, gestalt, appearance or condition and can also be described by the fact that it becomes visible or tangible or differentiated from something else.

The question of which emotions, thoughts and work processes are given form and how the inner experience of this can be made visible and shaped is a unifying moment of the works in "Figures of Imagination. TRANS...".

They are shape-shifting figures, companions on an imaginary journey through the metamorphoses of bodies and objects that refer to existential rites.  The exhibition thus becomes a playful form of capturing moments of appearance, adjustment , withdrawal and disappearance, as well as adaptation to, and refusal of social media attention-economies.

When in SHE SAID's first exhibition in the TRANS... series the relationship of body and person in reflection with the external was the central issue, it is now more about understanding what the body means for the individual. In this exhibition we perceive the body as a simulation, as a tool, as an archived shell, as something that eludes, and as something that needs to be modified.

The works are united by a moment of repetition and a knowledge that the visible part of the work is the starting point for imagination of what will be imaginable.

However, the oppositional "internal" is not understood as a limited space, on the contrary, it is precisely here that the space becomes stretchable, divisible, can expand and create multiple new possibilities, ways of seeing and expressing, in which the engagement with the external world and society is reflected.

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The conditions of his own possibilities are also explored by Michi Schmidl. In his video Portfolio02, he stages his entire body of work to date in the form of virtual models in the space of the university of applied arts. In this setting the works lose their original scale, expand, become larger than life and fill the room. This virtual rehearsal is mirrored in its model-like appearance in real space and becomes a blueprint for possible future actions. At the same time it is a conscious reflection on the conditions, requirements, and consequences of one's own actions and a test of speculative possibilities. 

Brooklyn J. Pakathi understands artistic research as an essential component of their practice and sees it as an opportunity to reflect on the premises of one's own feelings and actions. In _on being - (a study on inquiry), Brooklyn J. Pakathi initiates a dialogue that revolves around the exploration of being. It is an open-ended inquiry that incorporates text, diagrams, illustrations, critical visualization, and other research methods and materials,-a cartography of an interior landscape in which abstract concepts such as caring, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, and trust serve as coordinates.

The individual links of Iris Writze's chain-like object frag[ile/ment] consist of industrially manufactured metal hooks that connect different links of the chain. This consists of various sculptural elements, one being transparent rings and the other organic objects made from crushed eggshells. The object seeks strength in softness, resistance in vulnerability, and through its different references speaks about the inside and outside of the body. In this way, it makes their interrelationships and perhaps magical connections the subject.

With long limbs and wooden head, Jona Lingitz carved, sewed and filled his work Impotent Figure. Adapting to its surroundings, the doll cannot stand upright on its own. Its soft textile body can be turned and folded, it can be put in many positions. But the heavy head made of lime wood also restricts its mobility at the same time. It is like a kind of anchor, the doll's body is tied to it, like a big vessel. Presence thanks to its size or absence due to its passive way of drifting, simulation or visibility of the real?

The starting point of Maria Belova's work are Japanese haikus, short poems that follow strict rules and aim to express subjective emotional experiences in the face of fleeting natural events. The artist transforms and embodies these poems by translating them into sign language and executing the resulting lines in the form of metal objects. The word thus becomes a fleeting movement, a ritualized action, a performance and the object a record of this sequence of movements of the disappearing body. 

SHE SAID is an interdisciplinary sculpture, female artists collective and conceptual performance project with special interest in physical and digital public space.

SHE SAID was initiated in 2020 as a joint project by Eva Chytilek and Anna Zwingl. The two artists know each other from their teaching activities at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.  SHE SAID develops multidisciplinary projects with the aim of creating personal and social empowerment. She uses artistic expertise to develop multi-layered aesthetic strategies that go beyond the production of singular objects to then flow into different spaces and realities.

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TRANS... genre, medium, context, discipline, materiality, aesthetics, identities, gender... 

An exhibition series by the institute Transmedia Arts, University of Applied Arts Vienna at Georg Kargl Permanent

Transmedia Arts / Jakob Lena Knebl

University of Applied Arts Vienna

transmedialekunst.com

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